


Make an Omelette

by Romiress



Series: Walking on Eggshells [2]
Category: Batman (Comics)
Genre: Alternate Timelines, Batman Universe - Freeform, Discussion of the Ethics of Batman, Identity Issues, M/M, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Recovery from trauma, Reform for Arkham's Broken System
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-11-23
Updated: 2020-12-16
Packaged: 2021-03-09 18:54:20
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 15
Words: 22,082
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27681017
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Romiress/pseuds/Romiress
Summary: Bruce Wayne has been to hell and back: he's repaired the timeline, restoring things to how they should be.But he still remembers the life he lead, and coping with it is more difficult than he imagined.--Set in the alternate universe depicted in Batman: Universe #6, but doesn't require knowledge of that setting to follow.
Relationships: Alfred Pennyworth & Bruce Wayne, Bruce Wayne/Slade Wilson, Dick Grayson & Bruce Wayne, Oliver Queen & Bruce Wayne
Series: Walking on Eggshells [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1794811
Comments: 111
Kudos: 172





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> After a long, long, long wait... the second part of the eggverse.
> 
> As always, feel free to join us over on [discord](https://discord.gg/kYvx6cd) for update notifications, chapter discussion, fanart, and fanfic!

At first, Bruce hopes it will fade.

It's a reasonable assumption that it will, after all. His dreams always faded, vanishing as quickly as they'd come to him, only loose ideas remaining hours later.

He hopes it will fade because he feels like he's being torn in two. Everything he does, every person he speaks to, every thought he has is split.

He meets people for the first time that he's known for years. The costume he wears—armor, if he's being charitable—is as familiar to him as his own skin and yet completely unfamiliar.

But the memories do not fade. They remain, a burr in his mind, refusing to go away. The urgency of the situation fades, leaving Bruce even more thrown off then before.

Others start to notice.

Dick hovers over him for a while as people arrive to clean up the mess. Vandal's sub has to be dealt with, for one. Locating him is another. Bruce is aware, however distantly, he should be helping, and yet all he can do is stand there and try and let his mind reconcile two completely different sets of memories.

Eventually Dick drifts away, and a short time later drifts back with Clark. Clark's looking at him funny, signs of genuine concern in his expression, and Bruce can only imagine what he must look like. A mess, probably. Like he's out of his mind, because he is.

"Batman, are you alright? Nightwing is... concerned, and he isn't the only one."

Bruce should tell him that he's fine. He should tell him that it's been a long day. How long has it been since he was last at the Hall of Justice getting checked out? It feels like a lifetime and yet no time at all.

Apparently he doesn't answer quick enough, because Clark makes a concerned noise, looking him over again.

"I think we should have you checked out at the Hall of Justice."

Everything feels routine and normal and entirely at odds with what he's just been through. He both knows and doesn't know everything he encounters, and Dick hovers nearby, his face pinched with worry.

Bruce doesn't want to worry them. He doesn't want to upset them at all. But he hasn't managed to pull himself together just yet. He probably needs to sleep.

He tells himself that over and over. That sleep will take the edge off. Will give his brain time to reconcile the two sets of memories.

People hover around him, worried. He tries not to focus on them. He closes his eyes and tries not to think.

"Bruce?" Diana asks quietly. "Can you explain what happened?"

He struggles, even, just to do that. The scale of it seems so vast, and hammering it down to a few quick sentences seems so hard. But he supposes that he has to. He'll _have_ to explain what happened, or else they're not going to let him out. They'll think he's possessed or something like that.

So he tries, even if it's hard. He focuses on the _immediate_ facts. The implications.

Not the way his entire life has cracked in two.

"The white lantern ring was nearly all-powerful, but it was broken. It allowed the bearer to... warp reality, if they chose. I had the ring, but I refused to use it, so the... _program_ controlling the ring rejected me and chose Vandal instead. He used the ring's power to alter reality, creating a... a timeline or an alternate reality where I had never become Batman."

Diana's eyebrows continue to creep higher, her stunned expression the sort of thing that Bruce would have found amusing at another time.

"In that other timeline, I had... dreams of the real one. Of the egg, and the ring, and Vandal. In the end, I found him there, and he'd become trapped by the ring's faulty programming. To save himself, he was forced to undo the change, returning me to this... to this timeline. Setting things right. We fought over the ring, and when I finally grabbed it, I found myself back on his sub. I don't know what happened to him."

"That all sounds like a lot," John says, "but it doesn't explain... this." He gestures to Bruce, and Bruce lets out a small chuckle at how direct John is being.

Dick shifts nervously where he stands, as if the laugh is unnerving. Maybe it is. Bruce doesn't think the man that Dick knew laughed much.

"I believe the changes that we have observed are purely psychological," J'onn suggests. "If you would allow me, Bruce."

There's a gut _no_ that Bruce pushes away. He needs help. These people are his friends, and they're still important to him. They need to understand.

J'onn's mental touch is only brief, little more than a feather-light brush across his mind, and then J'onn withdraws, the sensations alien and uncomfortable. J'onn, Bruce knows, doesn't need to make the sensation felt. He's doing so only for Bruce's comfort.

"As I suspected, Bruce's experiences in both timelines are complete, but have not integrated as of yet."

"In simple terms?" Dick asks, face still pinched with concern. "What are we looking at, here?"

"Bruce has two sets of memories. Those from this timeline, and one from the timeline he was briefly placed in. It is apparent that none of us remember the other timeline—most likely Bruce remembers only because of his access to the white lantern ring."

Bruce knows, of course. He _knows_ he's the only one. If anyone else would have remembered, it would have been the League, filled with people with magic who regularly deal with the supernatural.

And none of them do.

"You said _as of yet,"_ Dick points out.

"The human mind is impressively malleable, and Bruce possesses impressive mental faculties. In time, either the non-dominant set of memories will fade, or perhaps the two sets will integrate. Either option would be a satisfying outcome, and should ease Bruce's distress."

Everyone in the room seems alarmed by the confirmation that Bruce is in _distress,_ but it's as plain as day and all but impossible to miss.

Maybe it's just hearing it said out loud that does it.

"I'm going to take him back to the manor," Dick says. "I think he needs some rest."

"I agree," Clark says with a quick glance to Diana, who nods. Clark turns back to Bruce then, his face fixed in his most serious, concerned-friend expression. "I think you should take some time off. Let us handle things until you're back on your feet."

It is immediately apparent to Bruce that everyone is expecting him to argue. They all seem to brace themselves, and it's like watching something happening to something else. A part of him wants to protest. A part of him is _watching_ that part of himself want to protest and coming to the realization that everyone around him is preparing to fight him over it.

It's strange to get that sort of revelation about _himself._ It doesn't even feel like it's about him, really. It feels like an observation he's making about someone else, which lets him feel a lot more clinical about the whole thing.

It also makes it easier to accept.

"Alright," he says simply, which causes a lot more concerned looks, because everyone seems convinced that Bruce would _never_ just accept things.

Bruce isn't even sure if he's Bruce anymore.


	2. Chapter 2

Bruce dreads going back to the manor, because he knows it won't be the same. Things are different, subtle changes here and there. The security system is one he personally designed, rather than one he had installed. The banister hasn't been refinished yet. The kitchen is all wrong.

Everything clashes and it's giving him a headache.

But none of it is as bad as seeing Alfred, because all he can think of—two sets of memories be damned—is how worried Alfred was before Bruce left for Europe. The way his voice had dropped, the fear and concern there.

Bruce knows that that Alfred and the one he's about to meet are the same. They're the same person whose life simply took a slightly different path because of Bruce's own choices.

But he _feels_ different. He _feels_ like an entirely new person, a seperate entity. Like those two Alfred's could meet each other, stand face to face, and talk.

Alfred, of course, doesn't know any of that. He doesn't know about the life he almost led. He doesn't know about the kind of person Bruce was in a world where he'd never been Batman. All he knows is what Dick told him, that there was an _incident,_ everyone is fine, but that Bruce is behaving oddly.

Which is probably only proven when Bruce makes a distressed noise at the sight of Alfred, takes one step forward, and then pulls Alfred into an overly-tight hug.

"I'm sorry, Al. I shouldn't have gone."

He doesn't know what compells him to say the words at all. They were meant for another Alfred, in another time and place, and a part of him is horrified by the entire exchange.

He feels like two people stuck in one body.

"Oh, master Bruce," Alfred says quietly, and then hugs him back. He's probably giving Dick his most concerned look, but Bruce can't see it and he lets himself ignore it if Al is.

"It's a long story," Dick explains while Bruce is preoccupied with hugging Alfred. "Basically he ended up in another world where he wasn't Batman, and was having dreams about our world, and—"

"No," Bruce corrects, cutting Dick off as he withdraws from the hug. "It wasn't another world. It was another timeline, a... change to the past. This is the corrected version."

He needs to hold onto that. _This_ is the correct world. _This_ is how things should have played out.

The part of him that lived in the other world just needs to be shut away. It has no place any longer.

Bruce just isn't sure if he'll be able to.

Alfred declares him unwell, and hurries him up the stairs to his room. Bruce deposits the suit in the hamper for Alfred to take down to the cave—an unusual state of affairs, to be sure—and then takes the longest, hottest shower of his life before crawling into bed. He wants the sweet relief of rest. He wants anything but reality.

He gets it, the exhaustion taking him within minutes.

<hr>

Bruce feels less awful the following morning, but it isn't a high bar. It's a spectacularly low bar, really, one that could only be passed under by using a shovel. Alfred's expression is pinched with concern when Bruce shows up for breakfast, but it's Dick's continued presence which _really_ raises the red flags for Bruce.

"I'm fine," Bruce insists, because it is at least physically true and he knows that Dick has better things to do than hover over him. Dick being there isn't going to make things go any faster. His brain needs time to process on its own.

"You really, really aren't," Dick insists. "You aren't acting like yourself, you _let_ yourself be benched without a word of protest... you didn't even go down to the cave to write a report when you got back. If I didn't already know the reason, I'd assumed you'd been replaced."

Bruce almost says that he _has_ been replaced, but that isn't true. It's less replacement and more that someone else has been poured into his body and now he's having to share. Two minds in one body, but the one that's more recent—the one that's more _there,_ if he's being honest with himself—is at the forefront.

He's going to have to deal with that at some point.

Instead, he chooses a kinder option, a softer explanation that isn't going to traumatize Dick more than he's already been traumatized.

"I know I've been behaving strangely. This is just something I'm going to need time to work through before I can get back to my normal routines." He chews his tongue, debating his wording, and then tries to ease Dick and Alfred into the idea. "I'm not sure I'm ever going to be completely how I was before. Having two perspectives on things has... opened my eyes to things. To mistakes I've made, and issues in how I've handled things."

Dick's expression is a mirror of Alfred's, the same pinched, calculating look as he tries to take in what Bruce has said.

"Mistakes you've made," he finally says, his tone light. "Such as?"

"I was too focused on being Batman and not enough on being Bruce Wayne. I see you when you visit _me,_ and we work around _my_ work schedule. I still haven't even seen your apartment, Dick."

Dick's discomfort is almost a physical _thing_ it's so obvious. He looks like an animal with its leg caught in a bear trap, almost _panicked._

Just from a tiny show of affection. Just from Bruce expressing interest in him. From Bruce admitting that he was too focused on work.

Bruce has never seen before how badly his focus on _Batman_ has hurt those around him.

Or maybe he just didn't want to see it.

Bruce withdraws, and Dick lets him go. He suddenly feels out of place, deeply aware of his own failings. Deeply aware of how _different_ he is, how different he feels.

"I'll be in my room."

He's barely eaten, but he's no longer hungry.


	3. Chapter 3

As far as Bruce knows—and no question, he does know a lot—his situation is entirely unique. He has no files to investigate, no one to look to for insight.

He needs it.

In another situation, he'd work his way through the information and come up with a plan, but right then he feels woefully unprepared. The situation deals almost entirely with emotions, and those have never been his area of expertise.

A part of him wants to withdraw, study the situation more thoroughly, and come up with a plan of attack on his own, no matter how long that takes.

The other part of him wants to go find a _goddamned therapist,_ because that's what people are supposed to do when faced with a situation that's even half as mentally taxing as this one.

In the end, he chooses something else, something in the middle: He calls Ollie.

"Bruce?" Is how Ollie answers the phone, apparently having been blessed by caller ID. "Didn't expect you to call."

It's a knife to the gut. When did he last call him about something that wasn't League business?

Not for a long while, he doesn't think.

"I know. It makes sense you didn't. Did you have time to talk?"

"I've got time. Is this about work, or—"

"It's only tangentally related." He doesn't want Ollie thinking he needs to suit up and be ready to go or anything like that. "Did they tell you what happened to me?"

"Clark told me you were on leave. Seemed hard to believe, honestly."

Bruce sinks back in his office chair, his entire body sagging into the seat. Ollie's right to not believe it. Bruce wouldn't have accepted a _forced vacation_ before. The two sets of memories, however, have... _broadened_ his horizons, albeit forcefully. They've given him perspective.

Perspective he should have had a long time ago.

"I ended up... It's a long and complicated story, but basically in another timeline. A world where I never became Batman. Where I was just Bruce Wayne and nothing else. And it was all different. I had never adopted Dick. The League had never formed. But it wasn't all... it wasn't all _bad._ The two of us were close. You were one of my closest friends, even. And when I got back here I realized... that we weren't. In this world we... why did we ever drift apart, Ollie?"

Ollie makes a small noise in the back of his throat, somewhere between shock and distress.

"Is that a metaphorical question, or—"

"No, it's... I know why we stopped talking. We were close, and then I ran off to do my world tour and train, and I stopped talking to anyone else."

And their relationship never recovered. Even when they worked together, it was nothing more than a passing thing. Casual. Flighty.

Not as close as they'd been.

"I realize I've been a poor friend," Bruce says. "I would like to... to do better, if you'd let me."

"Well, you've definitely changed, but good to see you're just as dramatic as you always were, Bruce. I don't know how you think our relationship was, but I don't think it was as bad as you think. I still consider you a friend, Bruce."

It's a relief, just not a big one. Bruce isn't sure how good Ollie's perspective is either.

He is, after all, letting Roy run around in a costume just the way Bruce was.

"Why don't you tell me about this other world you were in?" Ollie asks. "Can't imagine what you'd be like if you had never been Batman."

"I just never had the idea. As far back as I can tell, things were... largely the same until that point." No, completely the same, but he doesn't want to sound indecisive by correcting himself. "Then, rather than going out to train, I just... continued being Bruce Wayne. We stayed in touch. When you vanished for a year, I was beside myself, and when you came back... well, there's no sense of relief like someone you'd had a funeral for coming back from the dead. I helped you recover, reintroduced you to society..."

Bruce's expression flickers, but he pushes past the hesitation.

"You didn't tell me you were Green Arrow, and we drifted a bit because of that. Probably you thought I couldn't handle it, and you wouldn't have been wrong. I'm not sure I would have handle it well. I only found out because... well, there' was a misunderstanding with Deathstroke—"

Oliver splutters.

"Deathstroke? He's involved?"

Bruce doesn't really want to explain the whole story, but he doesn't have a lot of options, so he elaborates.

"An artifact was what disrupted the timeline, and in that other timeline I had... dreams about it. Constant recurring dreams about Vandal Savage and this egg. A lot happened and hired Deathstroke—"

Ollie splutters again.

"Deathstroke? Really? You couldn't think of anyone else?"

"He's extremely competent," Bruce points out. "And he does non-assasssin mercenary work."

"You could have just asked me."

"I didn't know you were Green Arrow at that point. I thought you were just rich and flighty."

"Well, you weren't _wrong,_ but that's beside the point. What was the misunderstanding?"

"I told you about the egg as Oliver and you said you could get some people to look into it for me, so I said yes, only I'd already hired Deathstroke, and when you started investigating..."

"I found Deathstroke."

"You found Deathstroke," Bruce agrees. "You attacked him, I found out you were Green Arrow, and that's about where things left off. You were angry that I'd gotten him involved."

"This isn't even the same _timeline_ and I'm annoyed at you for it. A terribly idea by every possible metric. Really, I expected better from you."

"You don't even know that Bruce. He is— _was_ a different sort of person."

Bruce gets the impression that Ollie is trying to scrutinize him from the phone, the sudden silence on the line telling and hard to ignore.

"Is that why you called? Because you just said _is,_ and then you changed it to _was,_ and either would have been fine but both is an issue."

Bruce's mouth feels dry. He wanted this, he reminds himself. He wanted to talk to Ollie so he could get advice. This was exactly what he wanted and now that it's in front of him, everything feels like a mistake.

"I... yes, I guess so. I can remember everything tha happened in that timeline. I remember what my life was like and how it all played out, and now I remember how things were _here,_ and it feels like... like I'm two different people. I keep doing things and thinking about things and having thoughts that just... clash. I remember you as someone I used to be friends with but drifted away from, but also as someone who I was close to. Someone I considered one of my closest friends _in the present."_

"And you're having a hard time reconciling those two, I would imagine."

Bruce makes a noise because any more is too much. Ollie is right. Reconciling the two is... hard.

"I'm not sure if I can. I wanted... I was hoping I'd just forget the rest. That it would fade away. Only it isn't. I can still remember it perfectly, and figuring out how to... to deal with it is..."

"You can't, realistically."

Oliver gets straight to the point. He doesn't dance around it, doesn't try and pretend like there's another answer.

Bruce wishes he sounded more confident then the small, pathetic little noise he makes.

"You can't go back to being who you were before, but you can't be the Bruce you were in that other world, either. Both versions have been lost. Who you are now... you have to be someone new. As stressful as it sounds, Bruce, you're going to have to treat it like an opportunity."

Bruce stares uncomprehendingly at the wall. Maybe he's being shortsighted, but he's struggling to imagine how it could be an opportunity when it's causing him so much pain.

"I'm not saying it's going to be easy, but people talk about outside perspective all the time, and now you have it. You can look at your life now and see how things are. What were you doing right. What you've been doing wrong. I figure there's probably things you're going 'yeah, I did great', and things you're horrified by. Now you can work on those. World's most heaping dose of reality."

Neither side of him wants to admit that a _reality check_ is what he needs, but both would have contested that the other half needed it.

Bruce grunts into the phone, and Ollie lets out a laugh.

"That sounds more like the Bruce I know. If anyone starts asking pointed questions about you acting odd, just grunt at them and that'll calm them down."

"Thanks." Bruce isn't sure where the thanks comes from, and yet it comes right out anyway. It feels, in a strange way, like relief. Like an answer he didn't know how to even ask the question for. "You've given me a lot to think about."

"Happy to help. Don't be a stranger, alright Bruce? Just give me a call when you're free sometime."

"Of course," Bruce says, saying his goodbye and hanging up the phone. He sets it down on his desk, 

He can't go back. He can't be either Bruce he was before. He has to be something new, something that ideally takes the best of both sides.

A new Bruce Wayne.


	4. Chapter 4

Dick is still there when Bruce emerges from his room, which strikes Bruce as a surprise. Dick's worry is obvious, yes, but he'd have assumed Alfred would have told Dick that _he_ would handle it. Alfred doesn't like Dick worrying himself unecessarily, and surely he'd reassured them enough.

Apparently Alfred's about as worried as Dick. He watches Bruce with obvious interest, his lips pinched into a thin line. Bruce wonders what he thinks—does he think this is no different than if Bruce was posessed?—and does what he can to reassure the pair of them.

"I know I've been acting strange," he says when he finds them in the kitchen, whatever conversation they'd been having dying away, "and I'm sorry for worrying you. But this is simply how things are now, and there's nothing I can do that will change that. I can't go back to how things were, and—"

"You've said as much," Alfred says, interrupting him. "I am less concerned about getting back _the old Bruce Wayne,_ and far more concerned with ensuring that the Bruce Wayne we have now is alright. You slept, but you hardly seem any better. You didn't eat, and—"

"I'll fix that right now," Bruce says, heading for where his food is waiting for him to reheat it. "I talked with Oliver."

"Green Arrow?" Dick says.

"Mr. Queen?" Alfred says at the same time.

"He was one of my closest friends in the other timeline. Because I never went off to train, we never drifted apart. He felt like... a good neutral ground between my options, and someone I could potentially make changes with immediately. My friendship with him in the other timeline was important to me."

"And you wanted to restore it here," Dick guesses. "Right?"

Bruce nods. _Restore_ might have been a strong word for it—the friendship wasn't broken, just a bit faded—but the idea is correct just the same.

"It was an easy change, but it was only the first one. There's going to be a lot of those, and I'm hoping all of them will be good."

Dick and Alfred exchange looks, and while Bruce considers how he could have made things sound less extreme, after a moment he decides he doesn't want to.

It's an extreme change.

"Why don't you tell us about this other world," Alfred suggests. "It would do a great deal towards helping us relax, or at least it would for me."

It's easier said than done. When Bruce thinks about a certain thing, he can easily compare the two timelines. In the grand scheme, though, it's harder to compare. There are so many small differences, so many changes, and many of them are largely unimportant in the long run. Does it matter to anyone else if he chose walnut rather than oak when changing the banisters? No, not really, and yet it's still different.

"I guess the biggest difference is that my world's relationship with superheroes is... very different. While they existed, there was no League, and no formal... grouping, I guess you could say. Sometimes they worked with each other, but only when there was cause, and a lot of the disasters I can think of seem to have been worse in the other timeline as a result."

He tries not to feel smug over the fact that he now knows for certain that the League wouldn't form without him. It isn't a good thing, after all. People died as a result. Thinking back, Bruce can think of a million things that might have been the _cause_ of the League not existing, many of them almost inconsequential. In the grand scheme of things, it could be that the League never formed because Bruce was such a key component that it couldn't exist without him...

Or it could have fallen apart because Bruce wasn't there to hold the elevator for Hal that first meeting, requiring him to fly in and leading to an argument.

"Well that's not good. Do you know why?" Dick asks, and when Bruce shakes his head, he offers his own guess. "Probably a security thing. They might have worked together, but if they didn't have anyone to make sure they could communicate and meet without getting found out by their enemies... well, then it'd fall apart."

Dick's idea is a sound one. Bruce has handled a great deal of the League's security, being supplanted only by Cyborg. He's not sure if Victor even existed in the other timeline: Bruce hadn't ever met him, obviously, and he doesn't remember reading about him either.

He's hardly the only one. He doesn't really know the _state_ of most of the heroes. He knows most of them existed, but he'd never paid enough attention to know anything more then that.

They hadn't been Gotham's heroes, so they hadn't really mattered to him.

"Gotham was... different. A lot of villains either didn't exist, or did exist and were now no longer villains." That, at least, he knows more about. "A lot of them simply ended up dead."

The response is mixed, and Bruce doesn't blame them for it. He doesn't know how he feels about it himself, for that matter. While some of his villains didn't _exist_ in a world without Batman, the relationship isn't as simple as 'Batman created them'.

In many cases, it's simply 'Batman arresting them prevented them from being shot to death'.

And in some cases, that feels better.

In others, it feels worse.

Bruce should never _celebrate_ the death of someone, and yet it's hard not to compare the two versions of Gotham that he's seen and come to the obvious, if painful, conclusion: the Gotham without a Batman was safer for the average citizen. There were less super-criminals causing chaos, even if the first time they appeared they took longer to be handled. Organized crime was more stable: pervasive, but less wantonly destructive the way struggles for territory so often are.

His concerns must show on his face, because neither Alfred nor Dick speak. They simply watch him, their faces matching expressions of concern until Dick finally breaks the silence.

"Bruce..."

"I don't know what you're going to say, Dick, but it won't make a difference. I've seen both versions, and I know that there's good and bad in both of them. But _am I really making Gotham a better place_ was just a doubt before, and now it's something more then that. People don't deserve to die. The people I've fought don't deserve to be killed. But what we're doing now isn't working."

Dick's hands ball into fists.

"I'm not giving it up."

"I wouldn't ask you too. The choice was already made the moment I first put on the cowl. If Batman and his allies vanish, it would be open season on Gotham. Stopping what we're doing wouldn't change that—it would just make the city so much worse."

"Oh." Dick seems to deflate, his anger leaving him in a rush. He was prepared to fight, and now Bruce has taken that away. There's nothing to fight about, no magic yes/no solution that would resolve the issue.

"You seem absolutely certain—and you have every reason to be—that Gotham not having Batman would be better for it, and yet stopping now won't change that. I can't imagine you will simply say it's too late and move on."

That's where it gets harder.

"I don't know what I'm going to do, Al. I'm going to... to think about it. To try and figure out an answer. A better way to deal with things. There's no magic solution, but... it's something I can work on."

"When you said having two perspectives had opened your eyes to things, I didn't think this was what you meant," Dick mutters under his breath, and Alfred offers a smile.

"I must confess I suspected as much. If the timeline you'd found yourself in was one where everything was universally worse for lack of a Batman, you would simply have been emboldened in your choices, and absolutely confident you had made the correct ones. Instead, you seemed uncertain and deeply hesitant more or less immediately, which meant that either the state of Gotham and the world was better there, or your personal life was better there."

"Oh, you didn't talk about that yet," Dick says. "You never adopted me there. Did you adopt someone else, then?"

"No," Bruce confirms. "I was... well, it was me and Alfred. It was lonely, if I'm being honest."

It's difficult for his mind not to stray. Difficult not to think about the last person in that world who made him feel _desired._ Who made him want something more.

It's hard not to think of how Slade's lips felt against his own.

Alfred raises an eyebrow, and Bruce realizes that no matter how he feels about it, he's showing his hand too much. He's blushing, he's gone silent, and Alfred and Dick are staring at him expectantly, waiting to hear, most likely, about some sort of lady love.

"I would assume neither Miss al Ghul or Miss Kyle were a part of your life, considering your differing backgrounds," Alfred says lightly. "Should I assume there was someone else?"

"No," Bruce says quickly, and then realizes it's a poor lie and abridges it with something like the truth. "There was someone I was... interested in, but it didn't go anywhere before I restored the timeline."

"You should look for them," Dick says, and Bruce splutters because the very _idea_ of him _seeking out_ Deathstroke is...

Well, it's something else.

"I don't think that would be appropriate. I'm a different person here. They... wouldn't be interested."

"You're still you," Dick counters. "You're still the same person, you just went about things differently. If someone liked who you were in that timeline, they'll like you here."

"I didn't even know if they liked me," Bruce bristles. "It's complicated."

"I have found, in all my years of life, that relationships are almost never as complicated as people insist they are. While obviously neither myself nor Master Dick can make the decision for you, I would ask that you at least keep an open mind on the subject. It's easy to dismiss the very idea out of hand, but actually doing something about it... well, that's much more difficult."

Alfred is giving him that _look_ that means he's dispensing sage wisdom, and it's all Bruce can do not to blurt out that the person who made him blush was _Deathstroke._

Somehow he doubts Alfred would be quite so supportive of a prospective romance if he knew who was going to be on the receiving end of those advances.

"I'll think about it," Bruce says after a moment. "That's all I can promise."

"And that is all that I'm asking," Alfred assures him. "I don't expect it will simply work out automatically because you ask nicely, but I think you deserve to give it a shot just the same."

Bruce sighs.

He'll figure _something_ out.


	5. Chapter 5

There is an attempt, however flimsy, to return to routine. Bruce has things that need to be done, and he can't just sit back in the manor with his hands in his lap doing fuck-all.

So he goes in to work, checking in at Wayne Enterprises. He's more hands off than he was in the other timeline, which is a whole new kind of insight. He offers a few suggestions at the board meeting he sits in on, which makes Lucius look rather confused.

Not a good sign.

He makes an appearance at a gala that afternoon, just so that no one thinks he's dead, and mentions feeling under the weather before retiring early for the night.

But for once, he doesn't go out on patrol. Instead, he returns to the manor, scribbling out notes on a notepad as he tries to get his thoughts straight before tossing the pages into the fire to burn away the evidence.

He wants things. He wants to find the best parts of both worlds, but the solution isn't as easy as he'd like it to be. There's no obvious one that he can see, no version that tells him the answer beyond that the current status quo isn't working.

There are just so many problems. The fact that Dick—a literal _child_ when he started—was allowed to go out and fight criminals. The fact that Arkham and Blackgate are revolving doors.

Hell, Arkham _itself_ is a problem. It alarms Bruce to realize that people are being kept there. The conditions are terrible. The whole facility is just focused on confinement, with minimal efforts being made to actually help people recover. It's really just a holding tank, and it's not even doing _that_ properly.

Half the people in Arkham shouldn't even be there, for that matter. Half of them should be in Blackgate, serving actual _sentences._

Not that Blackgate is much better, but it's at least better than _Arkham._

Bruce drums his fingers against his desk, trying to find an answer. Trying to find a _solution._

He comes up with nothing. Even with his new dual-perspective, the answer isn't obvious. He rubs at his temples, waiting for an epiphany that doesn't come. He's too close to the problem. Too... _invested._

He needs another set of eyes, and it feels so, _so_ easy to slide over to his computer and get to work. So easy to reach out, casting a lure into the darkest parts of the internet, the places were people's lives are sold and bought.

He gets a response less than ten minutes later, and heads down to the cave when he does. The suit feels like an old friend, and yet somehow constricting, but by the time Bruce leaves, heading for the heart of Gotham, the worst of the feeling is gone.

He feels somehow at home. Like he was always meant to be Batman, no matter what world or timeline he's a part of.

He couldn't possibly give this up.

An hour later he waits atop Gotham's library, hidden behind the gargoyles. Waiting for his plan to start. His stupid, idiotic plan.

He should have spent more time on it. He should have thought things through, bit by bit. But he's overly eager, and Alfred's encouragement is still ringing in his ears, and he knows that no matter what he does, he's not going to be able to do it alone.

He needs someone else. Someone he can trust. Someone he knows will tell him he's being an idiot if he is.

Just like he had in the other timeline.

"Should have known it was you," Slade calls as he arrives on the roof. He's in his armor, geared up and fully armed, but his hands are empty, his weapons still tucked away.

He's not here for a fight. Bruce is hiding from prying eyes, but he's not hidden enough for someone like Slade to not spot him. Slade's posture is casual as Bruce straightens up, taking Slade in. He, too, is weaponless, ready to talk rather than fight.

"You should have," Bruce agrees. "No one else would be willing to pay you to work in Gotham without a _very_ good reason, considering it would make you run afoul of me."

"Except you've been lying low," Slade counters. "Haven't been out for a few days, which is a _concerning_ sign for someone as obssessed as you. Something happened."

Slade isn't guessing. He has absolute confidence in his voice, absolute _certainty._ Is Bruce's deviation from his routine _that_ unusual?

Well, yeah, apparently it was.

"There have been some changes," he admits, dodging the subject as deftly as he can. "I didn't call you here to arrest you, if that's what you're thinking."

"I didn't think it was. If you were making a real attempt to arrest me, you'd be doing a fucking better job of it than this. You don't have a chance in hell with me on guard."

"I won our last fight," Bruce counters.

"Because Green Arrow showed up to save you."

That isn't how _he_ remembers it, but he's not here to argue with Slade about every little detail. He has more important things to think about. Vital things.

"I'm here to offer you a job."

"Not interested."

The speed at which Slade's rejection come catches him off guard, because Slade didn't even have time to _think_ about it. He didn't consider it at all, didn't ask any follow up questions or _anything._

"Generally you'd wait to hear the sort of job it is."

"Not with you. I know who you are, and how you work. You work for the League, you don't tolerate killing, and you care about Gotham with a fucking laser focus."

None of that is _wrong._

"This isn't a League mission. I can pay your fees."

"Of course you can, _Wayne."_

Slade makes sure that there can be no question if he knows who Bruce is or not. His words are absolutely unambigious, and confirms a suspicion that Bruce has held for a long time: that Slade knows exactly who he is, and has known for some time.

Considering how smart Slade is supposed to be, Bruce isn't terribly surprised.

"Then you know I'm good for it," Bruce counters. "There's no reason to decline."

"The reason is that I _know_ you'll be fucking insufferable to work with. You've got so many _principles_ they're leaking out your fucking ears, and I have other jobs to do."

"And if I double your usual pay?"

Slade is nothing if not motivated by money. It's not greed—he doesn't seem to even do much with his money, as far as Bruce can tell—and Bruce isn't above twisting his arm in just the right way to get him to play along.

Slade says nothing, watching Bruce in silence. He's considering, contemplating his options, and Bruce simply lets him, soaking in the silence.

Soaking in the possibilities. What could be. What might still be so.

"Alright, I'm interested," Slade finally says, his mental calculations apparently finished. "What's the job?"

That's a whole lot more complicated than just a few words.

"Why don't we move somewhere off a rooftop," Bruce suggests. "I have a safehouse nearby."

"So do I," Slade counters. "I bet mine's closer, too."

He points to the next building over, looking slightly more smug than usual, and Bruce conceeds the point. He isn't afraid of Slade betraying him; feelings aside, Slade is a man of his word. He wouldn't enter into negotiations only to stab his potential employer in the back. That's just not how he _works._

So right then, Bruce doesn't mind going into the belly of the beast.

Not with Slade, anyway.


	6. Chapter 6

Slade's apartment is more or less as Bruce expected it to be. Small, sparsely decorated, and indistinct. There's nothing unique or interesting about it, nothing that would draw anyone's attention. There _is_ a cache of weapons hidden somewhere, Bruce is sure, but it's well hidden enough he can't locate it without doing a real search and potentially drawing Slade's ire.

"So tell me about the job," Slade says as he pours himself a drink from a bottle of scotch kept safe above the fridge. "I assume it's something pretentious and self-important, knowing you."

"I've had a change of perspective," Bruce says, and his heart skips a beat when Slade reaches up, pulling off his helmet to reveal his face so that he can actually drink his scotch. "I want to improve things in Gotham, but I'm aware I'm not going to be able to manage on my own. I'm looking for a... partner in crime."

"Is this a literal crime or a metaphorical crime?" Slade asks, his eye focused on Bruce. With Slade unmasked, Bruce feels a need to reciprocate, so after a moment he reaches up, pulling his cowl off to reveal his face.

Bruce feels studied. Slade makes no attempt to disguise his scrutiny as he scans Bruce up and down, the blue of his eye seeming impossibly bright as he examines Bruce's face.

"Handsome," he says after a moment. "I think I prefer you in a suit, though."

And then he sips his scotch like the absolute bastard he is.

Bruce feels his face flush. He shouldn't. He should have more _control_ than this. But something about Slade—about the way he talks, about the way he moves, about his absolute confidence in everything he does—undoes him.

And Slade is noticing. His head cocks to the side ever so slightly, his gaze almost a physical weight as he watches Bruce. As he _studies_ him. As he takes Bruce apart with his gaze like he means nothing at all.

"I like this," Slade says, cutting through the silence. "You're all flustered. It's a good look on you."

"I could do without," Bruce mutters, regretting taking his cowl off entirely. He should have left it on. Then he'd feel less _studied._ More comfortable. "I believe we were talking about the job."

"And _I'd_ rather talk about the way you're looking at me, Wayne. This is new. Novel. Interesting, even."

"We're talking about the job," Bruce interrupts, steamrolling the conversation as hard as he can. "I realize I've been short sighted with Gotham. There's a lot of room for improvement, and a lot of issues that need dealing with. Some of them I can work on myself, but others I'll need another set of eyes on."

"And you're coming to _me_ for this, not anyone in the League," Slade says, his tone flat and umimpressed. "Why, exactly?"

Bruce actually has to take a moment to figure out how to reply, because the correct answer is inevitably _I want what we had before._

He knows he won't get it. Things are too different. He's Batman, for one, and they have a history here they didn't have in the other timeline.

"There are things in the League can do, and this isn't one of them. I need someone more familiar with the criminal underbelly, and someone I could potentially lean on for less... _legal_ methods. As Bruce Wayne, I can handle a lot, but... well, there are things that are better suited to your skillset."

"To killing."

Bruce scowls.

"You _do_ have a skillset beyond killing," he points out. "Considering dealing with endemic corruption is a major issue, in some cases applying political pressure will be enough. In others, it would be... _convenient_ if evidence was collected by someone that would prove that corruption."

"How unexpected of you," Slade says. He seems more serious for a moment, studying Bruce in an entirely different way. Studying him like he's expecting a trap, or some grand reveal that Bruce isn't actually Bruce at all. "I didn't think someone like you would ever get involved with someone like me."

"Despite what you'd like everyone to think, you aren't the monster you pretend to be. You have rules. Principles. You minimize collateral damage. You don't kill people you aren't paid to."

"Your bar of _acceptable behavior_ is on the floor, Wayne."

 _Wayne._ Something about the fact that it's _Wayne_ and not _Bruce_ rankles him. It feels unfamiliar, and he hates that. Not when he feels like he knows Slade so much more than that. Well enough to be on a first name basis, so he tries it out, testing the waters.

"If you wanted to be a monster, you could, Slade. If you _really_ wanted to cause as much destruction as possible, I'm not sure even the combined forces of the League would be enough to stop you. You're strong, yes, but your strength is in your tactics. Your planning. Your brain."

Slade clearly registers the use of his first name, because his head tips ever so slightly, studying Bruce. Taking it all in, and weighing what he knows. It hurts, knowing things that Slade doesn't. It hurts, not being able to talk about it.

But he needs to keep the truth about what he's doing and why close to his chest.

"I could say the same for you. You're an ordinary human, and yet you regularly fight people that are anything but ordinary. You stand on even ground with monsters like Superman and Wonder Woman without batting an eye."

Bruce makes a face at describing either as _monsters_ , and Slade simply rolls his eye.

"You know what I meant."

Despite the glare Bruce has just given him, he does, and he lets it pass.

"If I didn't know better, _Bruce,_ I'd think you were leading into a _we're not so different, you and I_ speech."

"That's because I was. You have the potential to do great things, Slade. You could help, rather than hurt."

"Hurting always pays more," Slade says dismissively. "I'm in it for the cash."

"You aren't, actually." Bruce is so matter of fact in the way he says it that even Slade seems taken aback, eyebrows raising.

"Oh, and you would know?"

"If you were only in it for the money, you'd let me pay you into retirement, and yet you never made that offer, and we both know you wouldn't take it."

"You don't know that."

"I do," Bruce says, unsure of where his certainty comes from.

Slade stares him down, and Bruce stares back. Something about it—something about staring down a man he knows could snap him in half like a twig—feels right. Feels _important._

"I've told you the deal. You work for me, and only me, for the duration of the contract. You'll be rewarded handsomely for your services. The work will be varied and often challenging. Take it or leave it."

He doesn't know what he's going to do if Slade leaves it.

Slade stares him down, the seconds ticking by seeming to grow longer and longer. Bruce swallows down his anxiety, trying to control his heart rate so it doesn't show. So that Slade can't _tell_.

He can probably tell anyway. Probably _knows_ something fishy is going on. And if he—

"Pass."

Bruce's mind slams to a halt, trying to process what he just heard. He knows he should say something, and yet he can't figure out what to say. He doesn't know how to argue against _pure rejection._

"Next time, don't waste your time with a fake contract. I know you have my number."

And then, just like that, Slade pulls his helmet back on, heads for the window, and leaves.

Leaving Bruce alone and spiraling downward.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> While I think this should go for _every_ fic, here's a quick reminder that Bruce's opinions are not my own, etcetc.

Bruce no longer knows what to do with himself. He feels like the answer _should_ have been yes, like everything was leading towards that only for things to take a hard right turn.

He doesn't understand why Slade said no.

He leaves the safehouse, and ignores patrol to go home. His head isn't in it, and he's learned from years of experience that if his mind is elsewhere, he's putting himself and others in danger. Better to go home. Better to rest.

Better to try and wrap his head around what's just happened.

Alfred gives him a perplexed look when he returns early, but Dick has apparently _finally_ left, so Bruce gets to go to bed without having Dick lurking nearby.

He lies in bed, staring at the ceiling, wondering what he did wrong. There feels like there should be some fundamental mistake, some misunderstanding.

He was so _certain,_ and as he lies in bed, tossing and turning, he doubts everything.

When he drags himself out of bed the following morning, he feels exhausted. He's weary in a way he doesn't often feel. Normally he's _physically_ tired but _emotionally_ ready, and now it's the opposite: for once he's well rested, but at what cost?

Alfred doesn't question him about what happened, but his concern is apparent anyway. Bruce mutters something about work, retires to his office, and makes an honest, good-faith attempt to get work done.

He doesn't get as much as he'd like finished, but he gets more than he would have a week ago. Before he was too laser-focused on being Batman; he neglected Wayne Enterprises entirely. Now, he's doing what he can to correct that, although he doubts Lucius will be so enthusiastic. The man was, for very good reasons, understandably _skeptical_ about Bruce's sudden involvement.

It's an adjustment, just one of many. He's not the only one who will be wary, and that's simply something Bruce is going to have to deal with. Really, Lucius's wariness is nothing compared to the resistance he could meet elsewhere.

Barbara stops by early in the afternoon, full of equal parts enthusiasm and curiosity. She's already heard about what happened from Dick and Alfred, but that doesn't stop her from quizzing him about it.

"So you were in a completely different world?"

"Different _timeline,"_ he corrects. "It only existed while the historical change was there. Once Vandal Savage reverted the change, things became as they are now."

"Except for you."

He almost corrects her—he's got all his old scars from being Batman, after all—before he realizes his mistake.

She means _mentally._

"Correct. It's possible Vandal Savage is the same way, but neither I nor the Lanterns are sure what happened to him. The ring could have sent him anywhere in time or space. For all we know, he's stranded on an alien planet... or somewhere in the distant past or future."

"Well, I'm not going to pretend like I'm upset on his behalf," Barbara says with a shake of her head. "He's hurt a lot of people, and considering what he was trying to do... for that matter, what he _did_ , this feels... right, you know?"

Bruce grunts, unwilling to comment on whether or not potentially being lost in space is _right_ or not.

"Either way," she says, leaning over slightly, her tone dropping conspiratorially. "Dick said you were talking about making changes. That you were taking time off from being Batman."

"It's not time off—" He starts, before realizing that, really, it _is._ "I just needed a few days to get my head on straight."

"And the changes?"

A harder question to answer, especially with Slade's rejection hanging over his head.

"I have a unique... secondary perspective," he says after a moment to think about it. "I've seen what Gotham is like without Batman. Without any sort of coordinated vigilante effort. It's not a matter of the situation in that timeline or this timeline being better or worse, but it's given me... thoughts about how things have been handled. About where my priorities lie. I've focused so much on stopping individual criminals that I haven't looked at the larger causes. If I spend twelve hours hunting down the riddler after he escapes... wouldn't it be better to spend that twelve hours making sure he _doesn't_ escape?"

"Arkham—"

"Is a problem in itself. Arkham is a holding tank for some of the most horrible people in Gotham. It's not a mental health facility in any way but name. It's unfair to people who need to be there for reasons that _aren't_ related to killing dozens of people to group them in, and even for those who _have_ killed dozens of people, it's not doing enough."

Barbara's eyebrows keep rising higher and higher as he talks, her look of surprise only intensifying.

"Okay, wow," she says after a moment. "When you started, I was all ready to argue with you, to say we were doing something important, but... well, I don't disagree with you. Arkham's a bad solution to an awful problem. I guess the real question is... what are you going to do about it?"

Well, easier to point out a problem them to fix it.

"I have some ideas," he says after a moment. "Some may work. Some I _know_ will work, because they were working in the other timeline. Some... may not work, but are worth trying anyway."

"Like?" Barbara asks eagerly. Bruce half-expects that she thinks he doesn't _actually_ have any solid ideas. It's not an unfounded thought, really.

"Gotham needs to reassess a lot of the _criminally insane_ for one. Some of them are operating on diagnosis from more than a decade ago, back when we tossed the mentally ill in asylums and called it a day. Some of them are genuinely disturbed, and need mental help—people like Harvey can't help what they're doing. They act in a disordered manner—"

"If I had a dollar for every time a coin flip's saved us..."

"To be insane under a court's definition, you need to lack awareness of your actions, understanding of your actions, or be literally unable to control your own actions. Look at the Joker. He shouldn't be in Arkham at all."

"You can't be serious," Barbara says, eyes narrowing. "Of course he should be."

"He's an unrepentent homicidal maniac," Bruce agrees, "but he knows exactly what he's doing. He isn't _compelled_ like someone like Harvey."

"Bruce, he kills people!" Barbara seems a moment away from throwing her hands in the air, baffled beyond reason. "Of course—"

Bruce stands his ground, and after a moment, Barbara goes silent.

"This isn't something I'm... pulling out of a hat, or anything like that. It's important. Arkham is using _extremely_ outdated mental health models. It's keeping inmates in tiny cells, with poor treatment options and almost no opportunity for improvement. A huge part of that is that it's overloaded. The system's been buried under people who shouldn't be there. Look at _Bane._ He's a calculating master planner, capable of absolutely masterful schemes, and yet they keep _putting him in Arkham!"_

The idea of Bane being on the same level legally as someone like Harvey, who can't help himself, turns Bruce's stomach.

Barbara remains silent for a while, and then, very slowly, nods.

"I... my gut instinct wants to say _of course the Joker is insane, he kills people,_ but at the same time you're right. If you count everyone who kills someone as insane, Arkham becomes overloaded, and you get the current situation. The moment someone wears a costume, they just get immediately carted over to Arkham, like wearing a mask in this day and age is somehow proof that you can't be placed in an ordinary prison."

"Arkham shouldn't be a holding tank for the worst of the worst. The whole system—from the building to the laws that fill it—need replacing. If I had full power and could just wave my hand and have it be done, there'd be a new facility _just_ for mental health treatment, a new, more _secure_ facility for mental health treatment of those ordered by the courts, and a lot of the people who've been turning the old facility into a revolving door would be moved to Blackgate, which _also_ needs updating, both in terms of facilities and securities."

"One thing at a time," Barbara says. "Blackgate needs fixing too, but not as much as Arkham, and Arkham's a more pressing concern."

It really is.

Despite having other plans, Bruce ends up spending the rest of the evening in his office with Barbara. She has good ideas, and she's more than willing to take him to task when he says something stupid. By the time she announces it's time for her to go out on patrol, they have a nice, solid, and clearly understandable plan. Things that are actually _actionable._

Things that could make a difference.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter comes with _gorgeous_ art by [Kalech](https://kalech-art.tumblr.com/), who's been a huge inspiration (and driving force) behind this fic. Definitely check their art out!

He sees Barbara off from the cave, and then heads to the library to pull some materials. While his office is a very nice place, he _vastly_ prefers the library. The seats are more comfortable, there's more material on hand, and Alfred feels more willing to come and go, since being in the office potentially means that Bruce is on a call that can't be interrupted.

The library is a place of comfort, and that's why, when Bruce steps inside, he knows immediately that's something off.

The hair on the back of his neck stands up, struck by the awareness of someone _else_ even before his brain can tell him why. The inside of the room's slightly cooler than the outside, as if a window was temporarily opened and closed. There's two chairs at a coffee table that are normally just visible from the entrance, but one chair's been moved back slightly, just out of sight. It's those and a million other tiny details that tip him off, and it isn't hard for him to pull his thoughts together, come up with an answer, and take a guess.

"Deathstroke," he calls, striding inward. "Next time, call first."

It _is_ Slade waiting there when Bruce turns the corner. He's shifted a chair slightly, taken a seat, and started lounging as if he was _bored_ waiting for Bruce to show up. As if the whole thing wasn't carefully calculated for a specific sort of impact.

An impact he doesn't get. Bruce can't see the reaction—Slade's still wearing his mask, after all—but he gets the impression Slade might actually be a bit irritated that Bruce beat him at his own game.

Good.

"What gave it away?"

"That would be telling." Bruce isn't going to be able to fight Slade like this (not with Slade fully armored, with weapons at the ready, and Bruce in jeans and a t-shirt), so he takes a seat across from the man, letting himself act perfectly at ease.

Slade isn't the only one who can play mind games. If Slade was there to kill him, he'd be doing it already. The fact that he's making a point to let Bruce see him means he's there to _talk._

So Bruce takes a guess as to why, exactly, Slade would be there at all. He takes a guess, hopes he's right, and gets ready to play it off if he isn't.

Or maybe, for all his tactics, he's just being hopeful.

"I see you've reconsidered my offer."

Slade snorts, shifting in his seat. Off balance, probably. That's good, and his lack of denial means that yes, Bruce is right.

Slade's reconsidered, although Bruce doesn't have the slightest idea why. He has very little to go on, and it's hard sorting out his feelings when they layer over each other so tightly.

"I assumed you'd been replaced, if we're being honest," Slade says. "Went to the League. Expected it to be a big surprise, only to find out they already knew. Superman was _unbelievably_ cagey about the whole thing, you should know. It was almost as if he didn't want to talk to me."

Bruce curses under his breath.

"You didn't tell him I tried to hire you, did you?"

"What's that, trying to keep me a secret from your little friends, Wayne? But no, I kept it to myself. Just said I'd run into you and you were acting off. Let him believe it was happening on a patrol or something like that."

"I'm flattered you tried to help," Bruce says with a snort. He doesn't believe for a second that rescuing him was the objective. No, the objective was...

"Please, I was hoping for a reward. No matter what I get up to, I don't want the world ending, and the League getting hijacked could easily lead to something like that."

Slade needs the stability the League offers to work, or at the very least that stability helps him a great deal. It's something he wants to keep around, and Bruce makes note of that, even though he doubt it will ever matter.

He's not in the business of destabilizing the world, after all.

"So, the job," Slade says.

"Helmet," Bruce chides him. "I'm not talking to a mask."

"You _are_ the mask most of the time," Slade counters.

But he huffs, reaching up to remove his helmet anyway. He looks amused, which Bruce is having a hard time interpreting. Is it just because of the banter they're having? Or is there something else going on?

"You're staring," Slade says, and Bruce averts his eyes.

"Lost in thought."

Stupid. He shouldn't have made an excuse, even if it _was_ true. Now he sounds defensive, and Slade picks up on that, shifting forward in his chair.

"If I didn't know better, Wayne, I'd think you _wanted_ me."

There's something downright devilish about Slade's grin, and just then it feels like a lightbulb's flicked on.

There's no point in waiting. All he can do is shoot his shot.

"I do."

Slade, for all his carefully managed self control, is taken aback. He blinks several times, staring at Bruce, like he can't quite believe what he's heard. And when Bruce _doesn't_ clarify, Slade tries to do it for him.

"I meant _sexually,"_ Slade says, trying to regain his mental footing.

"I know," Bruce says, refusing to let him.

There is something enthralling about throwing Slade so off kilter. He's a man of poise, of precision. Slade Wilson is a killer, yes, but he's undeniably good at what he does, no matter what that happens to be at the time.

And now Bruce has thrown him off.

It takes a moment for Slade to catch himself, to pull himself together in the face of something that is so clearly unexpected to him. Once he has, though, he's smooth as he ever was, without the tiniest sign of his previous confusion.

"I can't say I was expecting that," Slade says after a moment. "You never struck me as interested."

"In men?"

"In criminals."

Well, he isn't entirely wrong, but at the same time...

"The last two people I've been at all involved with were _both_ criminals, so it would seem you don't know me as well as you think."

Both Talia and Selina certainly qualify, and while Bruce knows his _reputation_ is of being entirely straight laced, the fact is that he's never been entirely adverse to that sort of thing.

Maybe, if he were seriously settling down, then it would be something to talk about, but right then? He's not even thinking about that.

No point in getting ahead of himself. No point in ruining the fun.

Because, for some bizarre reason—Bruce doesn't even want to think about why—he finds it fun. Maybe it's just his memories of bantering with Slade in the other timeline, but the idea of getting to do that again, the idea of having the upper hand...

That's nice.

"You can imagine how suspicious this would seem to me," Slade says flatly. "You've never shown even a shred of interest, and now you're _blatantly_ flirting with me."

"A lot's changed," Bruce says, considering his options before opting to leave things relatively unclear. "What matters is that I'm being genuine. This isn't a trick, or a trap. It's me being direct."

"And I'm going to want to know _why._ Superman opted not to explain, simply telling me that they apparently _did_ know you were acting strange, and that they knew why, and that they weren't concerned before sending me on my way. I want answers."

It's then that Bruce knows he's going to have to make a choice for how he wants to handle things. He can lay things on the table, spelling it all out and seeing how Slade handles it...

Or he can do something to more accurately mimic their original circumstances. In the other timeline, working together with a mystery hanging over them _worked._ It caught Slade's interest.

And now Bruce hopes for a repeat.

"I think if you want those answers, you're going to have to figure them out all on your own," Bruce says, adjusting his position in the seat. He makes sure his posture is relaxed, resting his head against his fist as he leans into it, and studies Slade.

There's no sign of his earlier discomfort. No sign he's anything but perfectly composed, although something about him—something Bruce can't quite figure out—tells Bruce Slade wishes he had left his helmet on.

"You're making a game of this," Slade says. He doesn't sound impressed.

"Guilty." Bruce finds himself smiling more and more as the seconds go by, feeling more and more comfortable with the situation. He feels in control, and the situation feels _right._ Slade is a dangerous man, yes, but Bruce is the one with the upper hand: Slade's reputation doesn't include killing potential clients during meetings, and that's undeniably what this is, despite the circumstances. "And I still want to hire you. There are things that will be much, _much_ easier for you to do than me."

"Under the table things."

"More or less," Bruce says. He's not stupid enough to believe that he can get everything done on his own, and while he's fairly certain he could make do with his current team... having Slade around _would_ make things infinitely easier.

He's had a change of heart on that much, at least.

"Give me an example."

Bruce picks the first that comes to mind.

"The mayor. I know he's dirty. He has almost every dirty cop in Gotham—" Slade snorts at that, but Bruce just carries on. "—on his payroll. I've got an endless amount of circumstantial evidence, but he's smart. I've never managed to find anything that would stick against him, and he makes it extremely... _inconvenient_ for us to find evidence of his wrongdoings."

"And you want me to find that evidence for you." Slade raises an eyebrow, but it's clearly not a question. He understands what Bruce is asking of him.

"Without implicating yourself, yes. Find what you can to get him out of office. Blackmail material to release to the press, evidence of his corruption... I don't care what. I leave it to your discretion, but keep in mind who you're working for."

Slade offers a grin that makes Bruce's stomach do a funny little flip. A grin that's more of a _smirk._ All sharp edges. _Predatory._

"So I can't just murder him is what you're saying. Because that _would_ be the fastest way to get him out of office."

"No, you can't just murder him," Bruce says, fighting to keep himself from blushing. He shouldn't be affected by the grin. Not when he knows what kind of a man Slade is, and certainly not when Slade's casually discussing _murder._

And yet he's flustered anyway, and a part of him is horrified by that.

"I accept your offer," Slade says, drumming his fingers on the arm of the chair. "I'll look into things and be in contact."

He pushes himself to his feet, and Bruce stays sitting, watching him stand. He's expecting _something_ , and he isn't disappointed as Slade turns his eye to Bruce, studying his face with a look of intense concentration.

"I'm going to figure you out," is all Slade says, and then he's gone - heading for a window, unlatching it without issue, and leaving Bruce by himself in the library.


	9. Chapter 9

Bruce feels giddy, but there's a layer of dread that goes along with it. He has the upper hand. His plans are moving along as he had hoped.

And yet at the same time, there's a sense that he's _overstepped._

The Bruce Wayne he was—the one the world knows, and the one that everyone's familiar with—would never have agreed to _work_ with Deathstroke, let alone chosen to hire him.

It's a line that Bruce never would have crossed before, and now he's thrown himself completely over it without so much as a second thought. He is a changed man, and now the only possible answer seems not just worthy of consideration, but downright inevitable: he has to become a new person.

He has to find out who he is.

He trusts that Slade will figure out an answer to the problem of the mayor, which means he can turn his attention to his own work.

There is, inevitably, a lot of it.

The talk with Barbara has given him a lot to think about, but of all of it, it's Harvey he can't get out of his head. Harvey, who was once his ally. Harvey, who was once his friend.

Harvey, who's sitting in Arkham, considered a danger to the world. Of all the people he's dealt with who are now in Arkham, Harvey feels the most reachable. The most obvious. The one who just needs an offered hand.

And he wants to be that hand.

He makes a few calls and locates a therapist who specializes in split personalities, then has to find another one when the first turns out to be a crackpot who thinks they're the result of demon worship. The second, a much younger man with a lot less experience, is more than willing to relocate to Gotham (at least temporarily) and work with Harvey despite the danger. Bruce gets the impression that the man is looking to make his _big break_ by being involved with one of Gotham's notorious criminals, but if the man's going to do good work, Bruce isn't going to fault him for that.

He'll have a hard enough time getting someone to come for any other reason.

Arkham is more than willing to have someone with _credentials_ come see one of their patience when Bruce calls, although the director _does_ seem interested as to why Bruce is even involved.

"I didn't think you had such a personal interest in Mr. Dent," he says, and Bruce is happy he's at home in his office so he doesn't have to hide his grimace.

"We used to be good friends. I even introduced Harvey to his ex-wife back before the accident. What happened to him was... it should never have happened, and if I can do something to help fix that, then all the better."

He wonders if the director will be so friendly when Bruce starts pulling his entire facility apart at the seams.

Alfred comes to check on him not long after he finishes the call, and Bruce eats with him rather than taking it in his office. After that, he calls Lucius to check in at the office, and when Lucius's alarm becomes more obvious, Bruce lets out a sigh and returns to his _own_ office to brief him.

"Are you on a secure line?"

"I'm in my office, yes."

"A few nights ago, the same night that the Gotham Museum of Art was... _un-robbed,_ I was involved in a situation where I found myself trapped in an alternate timeline. One where I'd never become Batman, and lived a completely different life. I had no idea about _this_ timeline, but managed to get back here anyway, at which point my memories were restored."

Lucius makes a small noise just to indicate that he's listening, and Bruce lets himself imagine the look of concentration that must be on the old man's face.

"However, my other memories weren't removed. I can still remember my entire life from the other timeline just as clearly as I can remember the ones here. It has made things... difficult, at times."

"Am I safe to assume that in the other timeline you had taken a much more active interest in Wayne Enterprises?"

"You would be correct to assume that, yes." He was _involved._ Wayne Enterprises there had been his company in more than name. "I took an active role in the company and worked directly with you."

Technically he _outranked_ Lucius, but comparing the two, Lucius is without question a better choice. The decisions he makes are smarter, and even if Bruce _did_ think he'd do a better job, the transition between them now would never work out. Even being _involved_ is going to be an uphill battle, and it's going to take a lot of his effort just to manage that.

"I would recommend coming up with a story for your sudden change of heart," Lucius suggests. "Otherwise, I suspect there will be a considerate amount of suspicion that you've been replaced by a body double."

Bruce lets out a small laugh, because he can't even entirely disagree with the sentiment.

"I was thinking that in a few days, someone can leak a story to the public... maybe I had an attempt on my life and it's made me reconsider some of my policies. It would certainly explain Bruce Wayne having a sudden interest in criminal justice and mental health treatment."

"That would certainly make sense. I'll keep an eye out, but otherwise, this is something you'll be handling on your own."

"Of course."

There's a moment of awkward silence as Bruce picks at how he wants to phrase things before he finally comes up with his best possible phrasing.

"Am I... still welcome to come by?"

To his relief, Lucius doesn't have even a moment of hesitation.

"It was nice having you around, Bruce. As confusing as it was at first, I don't think anyone would object to you becoming a regular fixture at Wayne Enterprises, assuming you have the time."

"Then I'll make a point of showing up more. Easing my way into it, and... catching up on what I've missed."

"Then I'll see you tomorrow?"

"Tomorrow, Lucius. I'm looking forward to it."


	10. Chapter 10

Slade is not used to feeling lost, and yet, in a way, he sort of does.

It's not like he's _completely_ lost—he has a pretty damn good grasp of the situation overall—but instead that certain pieces are missing. Like he just completed a novel and a few pages were torn out, or finishing a movie with the feeling that the two minute bathroom break you took might have included something important.

There's some key, absolutely vital detail, and he's missed it.

Even worse, his options for figuring out just what that detail is are limited. He can't go back to Superman to press him for information without showing his hand more than he'd like, and the same extends to most of the League. There's no telling if Superman's mentioned him to the rest, or if they're keeping an eye out for him as a result.

Well, more than they _usually_ keep an eye out for him. Superman's smart enough not to try anything when Slade comes to him to talk, but the others might not be.

Gotham, and the people in it, are his only option.

Or at least the Gotham _area._

Which is why Slade's in Bludhaven, watching and waiting for the person who knows Bruce Wayne best to show up on his usual patrol. He doesn't have long to wait, either—Nightwing appears like clockwork, making absolutely sure that the people of Bludhaven are aware that he's out and about. His methods and Wayne's are similar and yet remarkably different: Wayne prefers to let people _think_ he's there, inspiring fear in criminals, while Dick prefers to make sure people _know_ he's there, inspiring hope in the rest of the populace.

Slade thinks they're both idiots for letting people know when they're patrolling at all.

He gets the drop on Dick maybe ten minutes later, dropping onto a roof about twenty feet away from where Dick is. Dick's watching someone—staking them out, maybe, or just keeping an eye on a tense situation—but he spins around at the sound of Slade's boots, his eskrima sticks seeming to come out of nowhere as he prepares to wield them against an attacker that he assumes is coming after him.

Slade, of course, is not an idiot, so he's still twenty feet away and not even _close_ to Dick's range, which means the sudden defensiveness just comes off as being... well, pointless.

"Slade," Dick says, and Slade has to wonder idly when it was that so many of the heroes felt comfortable enough with him to be on a first name basis. "What are you doing here?"

"Fought your dad the other day," Slade says, cutting straight to the point in record time. He's not interested in dragging the conversation out, and the more he says, the greater the risk that Dick will catch on to his lies. "Something was off about him, so I started to look into it. He's been showing up more at Wayne Enterprises all of a sudden. Started acting odd. You sure he hasn't been replaced?"

If Superman's already talked to them, he'll be in trouble, but he's counting on Superman not feeling the need to tell _everyone_ that Slade came calling. It's against his best interests, after all: members of the League would see Slade's warning as some kind of _altruism,_ when really it's anything but.

Dick obviously feels the same way about _this_ talk, because he relaxes almost immediately. His guard's still up—he's right to be wary, after all—but he's no longer ready to be attacked _right that second._ He's no longer expecting it, just prepared for the possibility.

"He hasn't been replaced."

Slade cocks his head since Dick won't see it if he raises an eyebrow behind his mask.

"Not sure why I should just tell you, Slade," Dick says, actually crossing his arms, a monumentally stupid thing to do in front of Slade.

Slade still doesn't attack him, though. There's nothing to be gained from that, and as much as he and Dick end up fighting a lot, they're always fighting for a _reason_.

Slade doesn't fight people for anything less.

"Because I'm not convinced that the lot of you haven't been infected by alien spores or attacked by mind control or something like that. As much as you types love to brand me a _supervillain,_ I'm not interested in the world getting wiped out or taken over. Working would be pretty hard in that sort of situation."

Slade isn't sure why not everyone gets that about him.

"Well, we haven't." Dick is direct, which Slade appreciates, but he isn't giving Slade the answers he wants, which Slade does _not_ appreciate. "And I'm not going to tell you what happened. All you need to know is that everything is fine, and you just need to give it a bit longer and things will go back to business as usual."

Dick doesn't mean to give anything away, but it's almost impossible to talk _at all_ without doing so. It's a minor hint, but it is still a hint that Slade gets from him: the idea that whatever happened, it happened _recently,_ and that Dick expects it'll fade in time.

It makes things almost easy for Slade, because he knows exactly what Wayne was doing before things started getting _weird._ He knows because he was involved: because Vandal Savage hired him to help recover an artifact, to make sure it landed safely in his hands.

Which he did. He'd fought Batman _and_ Green Arrow for it, letting the Riddler escape and deliver the goods. Job well done, even if he'd had to break himself out of prison afterwards, the heroes attention focused elsewhere.

But it was, as far as he knew, just an egg. A Fabergé egg, or one in the same style. An old antique, probably worth a lot of money, but not _important._

At least as far as he knows, anyway.

Only something about the egg—about the whole situation, really—has caused a change. Something's happened. Maybe the eggs enchanted, or maybe it was Vandal who did something, but the man is in the wind, and that leaves only one sensible option.

So Slade steals the egg.

Or he doesn't quite _steal_ it, technically. It never leaves the room in the museum he finds it in, since he makes a point of inspecting it then and there, turning it over and looking through it once he's plucked it off the pedestal it's on. No obvious alarm goes off, which Slade is thankful for, because the sound of a _loud_ alarm would put him on edge, and he needs all his concentration as he inspects it.

He gets a whole two minutes before security arrives, a lone guard that's probably the first of many. He has a gun, which Slade recognizes by the distinctive _click_ of the safety being turned off, but he doesn't actually look up as the guard _presumably_ levels the gun at him.

"S-stop right there!"

The guard does not sound certain. Really, the guard sounds like he's about to shit his pants, and Slade isn't above preying on the man's fear.

"Do you really want to do that?" Slade asks, not stopping his inspection. "Because I don't think you do. I think, if you're being smart about it, that you'd stay right there, and when I go, I'm leaving without it."

"You aren't... you're not going to take it?"

Slade can _hear_ that glimmer of hope, and he doesn't hesitate to seize upon it.

"Nope. Just inspecting the goods, and then I'll be gone, and _you_ won't have to fight Deathstroke."

Slade doesn't think he's being arrogant when he thinks that most people wouldn't _ever_ want to fight Deathstroke.

There isn't much to find, though. The egg is just an egg, and when Slade applies a bit of pressure, it cracks open to reveal... nothing. An empty container, which he carefully replaces before rounding on the guard.

Even though Slade is barehanded, his weapons still tucked away, and the guard has a _gun_ pointed at him, it's the guard who panics, furiously backing up as Slade advances, his hand trembling so much there isn't a chance in hell he'd be able to actually shoot straight.

"But I didn't find what I was looking for," Slade says, voice dropped low. "So you're going to tell me what changed."

"What... changed?" The man's voice is little more than a squeak, the gun forgotten as he bumps against the wall, out of room to flee any further.

"When the museum got the egg back, it would have inspected it. I'm sure it got mentioned somewhere. Or maybe someone else knows."

"It... it opens now."

Bingo.

"And it didn't before?"

The guard furiously shakes his head, eyes darting between slade and the egg.

"It wasn't supposed to be one that opened, but now it does. They think... they think something was inside it, but that it was taken. They don't know what."

Slade doesn't think he's lying. He doesn't have any reason to lie, and self preservation is a serious instinct. The man's just a security guard, a _mook._ He's paid to keep kids from trespassing and help lost tourists, not to face down Deathstroke over an artifact he doesn't care about.

So Slade lets him go, holding a finger up to his own lips and giving a pointed look that he's sure translates even through the mask.

"I'll be going now. You won't see me again."

Slade leaves the museum without anyone trying to stop him. If any other guards are responding to the alarm (he starts to doubt they are — probably they're waiting for the first to report back), they're wisely keeping their distance.

It doesn't matter either way. He has what he needs: a clue.


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A reminder that this an explicit fic, and there will be adult content in the near future.

For all Slade's excitement over his first real clue, it doesn't pay off the way he hopes. He hunts down Riddler, shaking him down for information, but the man, as usual, knows nothing. He handed the egg off to Vandal Savage in Amsterdam, got his money, and that was the end of it.

Slade puts out feelers, trying to get a better idea of the situation, but there's nothing to find. There's no follow up jobs from Savage, nor any sign of the man at all. As far as Slade—and everyone he speaks to, for that matter—is aware, the man got the egg from Eddie and vanished.

It feels like pulling teeth to find anything even _approximating_ a lead: a disturbance in Gorilla City. Someone says Batman was there. Slade visits—he's welcome, a fact that Slade is _sure_ the League has no idea about—and they're perfectly willing to share the details.

That Riddler _was_ there. That Savage came to get him. That he had the egg.

That Riddler, somehow, managed to _lie to Slade's face_ when questioned.

So much for _professional courtesy._

Eddie is a whole lot less talkative when Slade visits him a second time, and a whole lot less friendly.

"He paid me a lot," Eddie insists, as if that matters to Slade. "I can't just tell you."

As it turns out, Eddie most certainly _can._

The story he gives is one that holds back no details, and yet somehow still manages to be incomplete. The egg had some kind of power. Eddie found himself tossed around the world, dropped in Gorilla City and feeling like he had a tumor in his brain for how hard it was to do _anything._ Vandal Savage had come, taken the egg, and dropped him off in an airport to recover and find his own way home.

This time, Slade _knows_ Eddie's given him everything, because he's made absolutely fucking sure of it.

It lets him, ever so slowly, connect the whole incident with something else entirely. Slade knows that the Green Lanterns made an appearance on Earth around that time. He knows they did _something_ out in the ocean, and then left to go back to space. He'd assumed it wasn't related, because it wasn't _in Gotham,_ but now he's wondering if he's wrong.

Now he's wondering if every single goddamn thing is actually secretly related. If it all connects back like some massive spider web.

It would be just like Batman for that to be true.

He ignores Wayne's attempts to contact him. Doing the job is important, but it feels so much less so than his own research. By the time Slade actually _does_ get around to it, he simply blows through it as fast as possible, done his _job_ in less than a few hours.

Tracking down Vandal Savage takes so much more of his time. Five days on any _other_ job and it would be finished. Five days into tracking down Vandal Savage and Slade has nothing.

The man's vanished. His empire lies headless, a power struggle already underway. People will die to get their hands on what he built.

And there's no sign of the man himself.

Eventually, Slade has to admit he isn't getting anywhere. Eventually, he knows he's going to have to go back to Wayne. Not defeated, but well on his way to being so.

He isn't used to failing. Not even something as low stakes as this.

It would help, though, if Wayne didn't look so goddamn _smug_ about it. Sure, at first he's irritated Slade's taken so long to get back to him, but the moment he finds out where Slade's been...

"Oh?" Wayne says, a smirk appearing almost instantaneously. "And what did you find while you were wasting our time, exactly?"

Slade scowls at him. He's seen a lot of sides of Batman, and even of Bruce Wayne, but this one is new.

"Nothing, and you damn well know it. There's no way for me to figure out what happened. Not with the information so heavily hidden."

"It isn't hidden, simply not shared. I never said it was possible for you to figure it out on your own, Slade. I just said I was curious if you could manage."

There are a few ways Slade might get his answers, but all of them involve dealing with people he'd prefer not to. Getting access to a Lantern would be damn near impossible, and getting the information out of Superman or Grayson would be like pulling teeth. Wayne's the most _available_ of the lot, and the one he has the most access too, but getting the information from _him_ feels like playing into his hands so perfectly.

Like that was what Wayne wanted from the start.

Maybe it is, if he was being genuine with the flirting. Slade's still not convinced; it's too much of a departure for Wayne.

There's so many options and yet none are _real_ options.

"You could just tell me," Slade points out, and then to sweeten the pot produces a file folder. "I _did_ do the work you assigned me, after all."

"You're not getting a reward for doing what I paid you for," Wayne says, taking the folder from him and flipping through. There isn't much to it, but there's enough, and as Wayne peruses the blackmail material, Slade expands on what he's found.

"Releasing that to the press will cause infighting between the mayor and the cops he's working with. They'll have to denounce him to keep their noses clean, and even then that's likely to cause a schism. They're not likely to be heavily coordinated, so infighting would be expected."

"Good," Wayne says, "because they're my next target. Cleaning the police up is going to take a lot more work than just one person, but it's going to be vital work. I'll have more criteria for that as well."

"More extra requirements, you mean."

"Exactly."

They're in Wayne's office, and Wayne makes a point to lean back in his chair. He's just in civilian clothes, and Slade _swears_ he's going insane, because Wayne's shirt seems exceptionally tight. Bruce Wayne, billionaire socialite, was never subtle with things like that, and yet this feels... more.

The whole damn thing feels _more_. More frustrating, more enticing, more time sensitive. It's just a swirl.

It's getting to him, too.

In any other situation, he'd be completely under control, precise and calculated with all his movements, but he's lost that. Wayne's thrown him off too much for him to manage that.

He should leave. Get his distance. Instead, he can't drag his eyes off the little patch of skin he can see between two of the buttons of Wayne's shirt.

And worse, Wayne _notices him staring._

"Like something you see?"

He should _leave._

"Who's to say I'm even interested in someone like you? In case you forgot, I was married to a woman."

It's a weak, flimsy defense. It doesn't even convince _him,_ and there's no chance he's managed to convince anyone else.

Wayne leans forward, resting his elbow on his desk. The position causes the top of his shirt to part, revealing a tantalizing glimpse of a _very_ well muscled chest.

Wayne has the looks, for sure.

"You are. No point trying to pretend like you aren't."

Wayne has his fucking number alright.

"I don't fuck clients."

"You should."

Jesus _Christ._ Wayne has his number, and he's not afraid to call him out.

"Our second official meeting—"

"Please, we've met plenty of times before this. We've known each either for years, Slade."

"Our second _official_ meeting, I said. The point is that you're propositioning me."

"I am."

Slade has a momentary epiphany at Bruce's blatant admission of the fact.

It's not that he's reading it wrong: Wayne really _is_ propositioning him. Wayne really _does_ want to fuck around.

And he's holding himself back... why? It's not that he can't remember his reasons, just that he's reassessing them in face of new information.

There's no reason to say no, so Slade simply reaches out, catching the front of Wayne's shirt and pulling him forward, dragging him into a rough kiss. There's nothing soft about it, all teeth with a hard edge.

Just the way Slade likes it. He wants to devour Wayne, take him apart then and there. The desk is the only thing that's separating them, and that's easy enough to slip over, scattering Wayne's papers to the floor as Slade closes the distance.

And then Wayne pulls back, gasping for air. Slade doesn't want to give him the time to think about things, pressing in for another kiss, but Wayne dodges, jerking back. His face looks flushed, chest heaving as he tries to catch his breath.

"Too fast."

"Not fast enough," Slade counters, but when he reaches forward, Wayne catches his wrist. Slade raises an eyebrow, looking at Wayne expectantly.

"You propositioned me," Slade points out.

"I assumed you'd decline."

"So you were trying to rile me up."

Wayne's silence is _very_ telling on that point.

"And now you plan to leave it there. With a kiss."

Wayne's at war with himself. It's all over his features, even for someone who's usually so stoic.

It's so easy to tip his opinion just the way Slade wants it.

"I think you want this," Slade says, letting his voice go nice and low. Husky, even. It has the desired effect, from the way Wayne shivers ever so slightly. "I think you want _me,_ and you're trying to convince yourself that you don't."

In answer, Wayne leans up, and when he kisses Slade, it's nothing like the first one.

This one is _Wayne's_ kiss, as tender as it's possible for a kiss to be.


	12. Chapter 12

Wayne's internal war is over, and it is painfully obvious which side has won. Whatever hesitation the man had is gone, and he wastes absolutely no time in taking control of the situation.

Slade's used to being in charge, but he's genuinely curious as to what Wayne's going to do, so he forces himself to relax, observing the situation but letting Wayne be in control.

He doesn't disappoint.

He maneuvers Slade with surprising ease despite the fact that Slade's still wearing most of his armor, pushing Slade up against his desk so that Slade gets the hint. He hops up, listening to the way the desk creaks under his weight, and then spreads his legs. He's moving to reach down and free his cock, because the way Wayne's sinking down to his knees in front of Slade leaves precious little to the imagination, when Wayne pushes his hands away, opting to do it himself. Slade suspects it's probably his way of showing her knows his way through Slade's armor, and even though his intentions are almost painfully obvious, that doesn't stop it from working.

There's something intoxicating about it. Not just that Bruce Wayne, beloved son of Gotham and the literal Batman is on his knees in front of him, but also the fact that Wayne knows _exactly_ how to get through his armor.

A shiver runs down Slade's spine.

Wayne's mouth is just as hot and wet as Slade expected, and the way he sinks down on Slade's not even fully erect cock is a mental image that Slade knows he'll refer back to in the future. Slade can't decide if Wayne has a lot of experience, or if he's practiced, but the results speak for themselves as Slade feels his cock filling out, forcing Wayne to withdraw just to keep breathing.

"You look good like this," Slade says, brushing a few stray hairs to the side. "Who knew Bruce Wayne would look at his best while on his knees?"

"Careful with your taunts while my teeth are so close," Wayne chides, and when he pulls Slade's cock back into his mouth, it's with the barely-there hint of teeth that makes Slade's breath catch.

"That's playing dirty."

Wayne doesn't respond, probably because he has a dick in his mouth, but he does shoot Slade a warning glare. Slade gets the picture, and he keeps his mouth shut as Wayne bobs down, dragging the flat of his tongue along as he goes.

It isn't the greatest blowjob he's ever had, but it's still _damned_ good, and the fact that it's coming from Wayne only makes it that much better.

Really, he's wondering why he didn't do this sooner. Wayne is his _type,_ not just physically (he's not bad, physically), but in all the ways that really matter. It's the fire in him, the _fight._ It makes Wayne being on his knees that much better. It makes the feeling of his mouth on Slade's cock downright intoxicating.

The whole encounter isn't even _over,_ and Slade's already ready to do it again.

He reaches down, tangling his fingers into Wayne's short hair, and ever so lightly guides him along. Slade gets the sense that Wayne is _allowing_ him to use his hand, and he can't help but wonder if Wayne actually enjoys the feeling of being guided along. He seems to be a shade more enthusiastic with Slade's hand on his head than he was before, a small fact that Slade files away for later.

Could be useful.

"There we go," Slade coos, giving Wayne some much-needed attention and delighting in the way he responds to it. He seems downright desperate for Slade's focus, and Slade's all too willing to oblige him. "Just like that."

Wayne's eyes are half-lidded as he swallows down Slade's cock, going all the way to the root. Slade slides his fingers down Wayne's cheek, cupping his throat and feeling the slight bulge from the head of his own cock there.

"Perfect. You going to swallow it all?"

Wayne offers no protest when Slade slips his hand back up, cupping the back of Wayne's head and holding him in place. He makes a few short thrusts, rutting into Wayne's mouth, and then finishes down his throat, exhaling as he does.

He opens his eye, staring down at Wayne's fucked out face, and his brain—very much in the back seat as his cock took control—finally wakes up. Finally starts thinking.

_What the fuck is he doing?_

He should find it hot. The very idea of the Batman on his knees, sucking Slade's dick should be amazing.

But his blood's gone cold as his brain really _thinks._ As his brain tries to really understand.

As he realizes he has absolutely no idea what it is that Wayne is thinking.

The man's a mystery. He can understand his own part, can understand what _he's_ getting out of this, but what about Wayne? As far as Slade can tell, he's getting nothing out of the experience than sore knees. He looks dazed, and Slade runs through the possibilities as fast as lightning. Is it possible Wayne was drugged? Is it possible the whole thing is to collect some kind of sperm sample for _some_ reason? Is he trying to get Slade on his side?

Slade doesn't have a single goddamn clue.

All he knows is that he needs to get out of there and get his head on straight.

So he does. He pulls back, does up his pants, and gets the _fuck_ out as fast as his legs will carry him.

He can deal with everything else later when the lizard part of his brain stops screaming about the fact that he's let someone as dangerous as Wayne so close.


	13. Chapter 13

Bruce doesn't go after him. He stays where he is, still on his knees, feeling dazed. His mouth is filled with the taste of Slade, and even though Slade has literally bolted out the window, he's still hard.

His cock is heavy between his thighs and Bruce wonders just what the hell he was thinking.

What does it say about him that he was so willing to oblige a whim? That he was so willing to drop everything just to get his hands—or mouth, in this case—on Slade?

He's too desperate. He's too eager to have what he had in the other timeline back. He's rushing it and trying to force a connection that isn't there and the very _idea_ of it, of that first too-soft kiss, is enough to drive him mad.

He jerks himself off right there, hoping for some sort of post-orgasm clarity.

He doesn't get it. He feels just as lost and confused once he's done.

It's not until a few hours later that a more important emotion takes hold: anger.

He was _on his knees_ giving Slade a _fucking blowjob,_ and Slade's response to Bruce literally sucking him off and letting him cum down his throat was to _bolt out the window without a word._

After that, Bruce feels like his emotions are a lot easier to sort out. Anger, annoyance, and frustration are all old hand. He understands them. They're easier to process than the wistless longing for something that couldn't be that's ruled the past few days.

With Slade in the wind, Bruce turns to other things. He arranges, and has leaked, news that someone tried to kill him. He lets people speculate about what that could mean, and finds himself amused as people try and analyze his actions. They can't possibly guess the answers, of course, but over the next few days he makes move after move, leaving everyone speculating.

He announces a number of generous donations to significant social programs, bringing several smaller ones, lead by Gotham citizens, from 'barely making ends meet' to 'well funded' overnight. He makes time for Barbara, Dick, and the others who he would normally check in on. Clark even comes to visit briefly, looking overly concerned until Bruce manages to convince him that he's better.

"Better doesn't mean alright," Clark points out, but by the time he leaves to return to work, he seems genuinely convinced that Bruce _is_ doing better. That he's recovering.

Bruce thinks that too.

It feels good to be doing things. Good to feel like he's making real, genuine changes in the world.

And it keeps his mind off Slade, most importantly of all.

Ollie stops by, claiming he's in town for business. It's clear that he, like Clark, is checking up on Bruce's state, but it's still good to see him. They sit out back, looking over the manor grounds, and Ollie quizzes him on everything.

"So I was still Green Arrow?"

Bruce nods immediately.

"And you had Roy with you when you came to Gotham. I was genuinely horrified you were putting him at risk, honestly."

"We got the idea from you!"

"Not in that world, you didn't. Came up with it on your own, or mimicked someone else. There was no Robin over there."

Ollie considers that, swirling his drink around in his hand as he does.

"No Dick?"

"Someone else might have taken him in. I don't know. To me he was just... a random civilian. No connection."

"Hard to imagine."

Bruce agrees. He'd say that he's struggling to even imagine what his life would be like without Dick, but the fact is that he _does_ already know what it would be like without him.

His life would be that much emptier.

He has that thought in mind when he goes to visit Dick in Bludhaven. Dick's been up there for _years,_ and while Bruce visited him before, he's never been there since Dick moved to his new apartment. It's on the other side of town from where he used to live, small and homey. It's not at all to Bruce's taste, but it clearly is to Dick's, so Bruce keeps his mouth firmly shut as Dick shows him around the place.

And just as Bruce is inspecting the premises, Dick is inspecting _him._ He's clearly wary, thrown off by Bruce's presence in his space, but it doesn't seem like he's genuinely uncomfortable or anything like that.

Just surprised.

"I really hope you don't mind me dropping by without much notice."

"An hour is fine. Plenty of time for me to tell you if I'm out or something, and give the apartment a quick cleanup rather than letting you see the mess I normally live with.

Bruce cracks a smile at that, and they end up settling into chairs in the main living area. Dick obviously has people over at least semi-regularly, because the chairs are well-worn, showing signs of getting plenty of use.

"Deathstroke checked in with me like a week ago, you know?"

Bruce has to make a real effort to keep his composure and not choke on his drink at the mention. Dick—and Alfred, and everyone else for that matter—have no idea, of course. Alfred might _suspect_ Bruce is sneaking around with Slade, but he has no idea of the reality.

Why would he ever guess something like that, after all?

"Checked in seems like a very polite way to say _fought."_

"Didn't fight at all," Dick counters. "Apparently he'd figured out something was up with you and wanted to know if you'd been taken over by a brain slug or something. Told him it wasn't anything like that, you're just fine, and send him on his way."

Bruce makes a little _hmmm,_ pondering the implications, but it doesn't seem that vital. Interesting, yes, since he already knows Slade reached out to Clark.

"When was this?"

Dick's eyes narrow, and Bruce suddenly has his full and undivided attention.

"Why, exactly?"

Bruce doesn't have an answer right away. The only one that makes any sense is _I want to know if he asked you before or after he mentioned talking to Superman to me,_ so he has to redirect it somehow.

"He apparently also tried to tip off Clark. I was wondering if he went to Clark and then you, or you and then Clark. Does he think that the Bats, or the League are the ones infected?"

It's as good a lie as any, but Bruce feels a pang of regret for lying to Dick at all. He doesn't want to sneak around. He doesn't want to pretend.

At the same time, he's not ready to be up front either. He can only imagine how people would react to how he feels about Slade. To what they did together.

If you can count one unreciprocated blowjob as _together._

Dick seems to buy it, which only worsens Bruce's guilt.

"About four days ago, I think? Four or five depending on how you count nights."

So not just after Clark was spoken to, but after Slade had spoken to Bruce about it. Bruce apparently takes too long replying, because Dick clicks his tongue to draw Bruce's attention, cocking his head in question.

"So? Am I the lucky or unlucky one?"

"Clark first. He must have assumed the League was compromised."

"Now he probably assumes we're _all_ compromised," Dick says with a sigh. "We're going to have to keep an eye out for him doing something stupid."

"I'll keep an eye open." Bruce wants to move on. He wants to talk about something that _isn't_ Slade. Anything but him.

But Dick won't give it up.

"You're not doing many patrols, are you? I might adjust my rotations. Maybe come down and patrol Gotham a bit if you're going to be busy."

"I was thinking about getting back into the swing of it," Bruce says. The last thing he wants is Dick patrolling Gotham while Slade may or may not be coming and going. "Although I'm not sure Gotham _needs_ patrols as regularly as we've been. It's a lot of time for minimal gain."

"People expect it. If we don't—"

"That's why I said _as regularly._ I'll still be patrolling, just not as much as I used to."

Dick gets a _look,_ and Bruce knows, without question, that he's about to get screwed over by whatever is about to come out of Dick's mouth.

"Do you really think we should be reducing patrols when it's likely that Deathstroke's snooping around Gotham?"

The answer, of course is _no._ Slade's presence means regular patrols are all but mandatory.

Which means Bruce is on the hook unless he wants to risk Dick or Barbara from running into him and causing even _more_ trouble.

"You're right," he says. "I'll try and keep them up until we can figure out if Slade's going to be an issue."

Dick squints at him for a moment, and then nods. Bruce suspects it's because he gave in too easily, but he's having a hard time guessing. Dick is one of the harder parts of his life to really understand; before, he was loving but distant, and the other timeline had no Dick to get used to.

Bruce catches himself staring at Dick, and tears his eyes away, shaking his head.

He just needs to do better. That's all he _can_ do.


	14. Chapter 14

Being Batman feels right. Slipping on his armor and going out into the city at night feels like what he was _born_ to do, an inevitability. Like no matter what world he was in, it would eventually end up doing it.

He knows it isn't true. He's been to another world where the very idea of something like him being Batman was absurd.

And yet it still feels _true._

Batman feels like fate.

But the same doesn't feel true for patrols. They're deeply familiar territory for him, following well-worn routes and keeping an eye out for anything that might be trouble. He does find it—does make a difference in some small ways—but it never feels really _good._ It doesn't feel satisfying, like he's making a real impact, and every time he scares off a would-be mugger by lurking in the open, all Bruce can think to himself is _someone else should be doing this._

He needs to, before anything else, deal with the corruption that's endemic in Gotham's police force.

Which requires Slade.

There's no sign of Deathstroke for the next three nights, and when Bruce sends him a message, he gets no response. It's hard to tell if the man's blowing him off just for then, or if he's actually decided to be done with the _whole_ thing.

Bruce doesn't know what he'd do if it was the latter. Even with how thing ended—even with Slade literally escaping out a window with Bruce still on his knees—he doesn't want Slade gone. He wants him to come back. To understand.

He catches sight of Deathstroke on the fourth night, but the sighting is so brief it seems almost accidental. It's hardly more than a glimpse, the tiniest sign of someone _watching_ Bruce, but that's enough.

He goes after them.

It occurs to Bruce, maybe five minutes into his pursuit, that he might not be after Slade at all. It could be someone else, a different enemy, but the fact that he's managing to stay just ahead of Bruce is a good sign that it isn't. Bruce is fast, and he knows Gotham better than he knows the back of his own hand, but Slade's faster, and that's what keeps him from getting caught.

But he does slip up. He takes a wrong turn, likely unfamiliar with the particular part of town they're in. He runs up against a wall, and he's not as fast as climbing as he is as running.

It _is_ Deathstroke, and Bruce feels a surge of victory, even if he's only caught the man, not taken him down.

Slade seems to realize he's caught, because he turns in place, staring down Bruce. He's ready for a fight, clearly (Slade is never _not_ ready for a fight as far as Bruce is concerned), but he doesn't have his weapons out.

So at least there's that.

"You left in a hurry last time," Bruce calls to him, and Slade cocks his head, a scowl all but guaranteed to be on his face beneath his mask.

And then Slade's on him.

It happens so fast it's hardly a blink of Bruce's eye. One minute Slade's standing still, and the next he shoots forward, colliding with Bruce with all the force he can apparently muster. Bruce is used to fighting Slade, but he's not used to fighting Slade like _this._ He's used to slade holding back, keeping himself from punching through walls because he knows it would draw the wrong kind of attention.

Which goes out the window when Slade just misses Bruce's head, punching the brick wall hard enough that part of it becomes little more than powder.

Oh.

Slade is fighting seriously. Slade might even be trying to kill him.

All Bruce can do is make absolutely sure Slade doesn't succeed. He moves to clear the distance between them, refusing to let his brain try and think about the _why_ —he's in enough danger without his mind wandering—and focusing entirely on what's happening. On every swing of Slade's arm. On every movement of his body.

Slade nearly catches him with a leg sweep, and Bruce flips himself backwards to dodge it, giving a back handspring that Dick would be proud of. It's not as easy as it used to be, the heavy armor of his suit limiting his mobility, but he's _always_ insisted mobility be a major concern, and this particular suit is no different.

The whole fight—from start to extravagant end—doesn't even last a full minute.

The moment Bruce is on his feet, he prepares himself for another attack, but Slade's standing still a few feet away, watching him.

Staring.

"What the hell was that about?" Bruce mutters under his breath. Every second they _aren't_ fighting, the analytical part of his brain is starting to come online, reminding him how absurd the situation is. Reminding him that Slade nearly _killed_ him.

"Wanted to see if you'd roll over. Wanted to see if you'd fight."

"Well I fought," Bruce snaps. "You nearly killed me."

"Probably."

At least Slade doesn't try and pretend he was pulling his punches, because he most definitely was not, and Bruce wouldn't have believed him for a fucking second. The anger Bruce had when Slade first ran out on him is coming back, the fire rekindled by Slade's attack.

His hands clench into fists as he drops his arms to his sides, the battle apparently, in Slade's mind, over.

For Bruce, it's only just starting.

"You nearly killed me."

"I wanted to be sure you'd fight back. You've been acting strangely enough that I was half expecting you to just roll over and let me pulverize you. Better to rule that out—"

"No, it's _not_ better, because I would have _died."_

"I have more control then that."

Bruce throws his arms up at that.

"Then I would only have been _seriously injured._ What you did was unacceptable, Slade."

Slade is apparently slow to anger, but now that he is angry—and he's certainly getting there—it's obvious. It shows in the tone of his voice, quiet with a sharp edge, and in the way he holds himself. He's getting angrier by the second, the whole thing threatening to explode into another fight. One Bruce isn't sure he'll win.

Not that he lets that stop him.

"Whatever the hell is going on, you're intentionally keeping me in the dark. You're not acting like yourself, you're suddenly willing to collaborate... You don't even feel like the same person. This person? I'm not willing to work with them, money or not. I have no idea who you are or what you want."

It hurts hearing it. It hurts hearing he's so different Slade apparently considers him an _entirely different person._ It hurts hearing Slade's apparently cutting him off.

Only not really.

"You were spying on me."

"Of course I was. I'm trying to figure out what's going on before you end civilization as I know it."

The realization that Slade is following him out of _fear_ hits Bruce like a truck.

He has never thought about Slade in the sense of _fear_ before. He has never considered him from that angle. But in the end, _fear_ is what explains the current situation.

Slade doesn't understand what Bruce is doing. He doesn't understand the _why_ in the slightest. Even when he investigated, he found nothing but more questions. No answers. No explanations.

One of the most dangerous men he knows is acting in a manner that would imply possession, and everyone _else_ is implying that it isn't. They offer him no evidence. They simply ask tha he, a man who does not trust, trust them.

And worst of all, Bruce can only imagine how he would feel if the situation was flipped: if Slade was intentionally hiding something from _him._ If he was keeping a secret like that, the scale of it unclear, the danger of it apparent.

The guilt threatens to eat Bruce alive. He would hate Slade for hiding something like this, and yet Slade's still tolerating his presence, despite how wary he is. Despite the edge of _fear._

He has to do something about it.

"I realize I haven't been up front about any of this," Bruce says after a moment. "Let me remedy that. I'd like to... explain things to you. In private." Not out in the open. They've already said more than he'd like, even if he's sure Slade would realize if someone was near enough to listen in.

Slade cocks his head, staring Bruce down. Taking in the offer.

Weighing his options, and the danger there.

"...Alright," Slade says, but his posture makes it clear he's expecting an attack. His hand isn't on the hilt of his sword, but it might as well be, the tenseness in his body obvious at every angle.

Bruce isn't sure he's ever seen Slade look so tense, either.

"Come on," Bruce says, and leads the way, Slade following just behind as they make their way to a safehouse.


	15. Chapter 15

The moment they're inside, Bruce peels off his cowl, setting it aside as he sits down in one of the seats. Slade stays standing, waiting for an attack that won't come.

Bruce has explained himself enough that he no longer struggles figuring out where to start. It's actually _easy_ now, a rote thing to explain why he's acting like a completely different person. Only one factor really changes things up, and that's where he starts with Slade.

"What do you know about what happened?"

Slade, as always, manages to impress him with how much he's managed to figure out.

"All this has to do with the egg that was stolen out of the Gotham museum the other night. Something was inside it—magic, probably, but could be alien tech—and that something caused a lot of havoc. Teleported you and Riddler around the planet. Green Lanterns might have come to deal with it, which would imply you got shot out into space at some point or another, or maybe you called them. Vandal Savage wanted it, but no one knows where he is, so hard to say anything beyond that."

It's significantly more than Bruce expected, and he nods.

"You're right. but still underselling it. The artifact inside the egg was a prototype Green Lantern ring, invested with so much power it became a danger. It allowed the wearer to travel through space and time, which landed me in the Wild West of America, but also out in space on Thanagar for a short while. It was malfunctioning, and when Vandal Savage got his hands on it, he used it to erase me."

Slade cocks his head, listening intently. Somehow, telling the story is easier with Slade's helmet still on; Bruce doesn't have to worry about analyzing Slade's microexpressions to try and figure out what he's thinking, after all.

"He took away Batman. In the timeline he created, I was just Bruce Wayne. I'd never had the idea to go out and become a vigilante, and found the whole idea distasteful. But my whole life, I'd had dreams about what happened in _this_ timeline: about the egg, and the glowing ring inside, and Vandal Savage himself. I was drawn to it, and when I finally did find it, I was able to put things back. I restored the timeline, undid the damage. Vandal himself was lost. The ring had... sent him somewhere, and I don't have the slightest idea where."

"Which all sounds very exciting, but it doesn't _explain,"_ Slade mutters. "Get to that part."

"I still remember the other timeline. I remember it exactly as it was. To me, what happened in that other timeline is just as real as things that happened here. I remember being Batman, but I also remember a world where I never took up the cowl. Dick is both my son, and a complete stranger. And you..."

His face twists despite his attempts at self control. Explaining all that is easy. Explaining Slade is harder.

"In the other timeline, I'd hired you to help me find the egg. We had... chemistry, I suppose you could say. You were clearly interested in me, and I was interested back. We were becoming... _involved_ when the timeline was repaired, so it never went anywhere, but since then..."

"You can't stop thinking about me. About what could have been."

Slade closes the distance between them, looming large over Bruce, and Bruce's heart skips a beat. He's not sure how Slade is going to react: relieved to know the truth, or angry Bruce hid it from him?

Bruce is not expecting that reaction to be _horny._

Slade leans in, hand reaching out to grip the top of Bruce's chair just behind his head. It leaves Slade's body bracketing Bruce's, trapping him in the chair as Slade hovers over him.

He leans in, helmet and all, and when he speaks his voice is low and husky.

"So what you're saying is that in that other timeline, I fucked you so good that when you ended up in a whole other timeline you just had to get some for yourself?"

Bruce's face is on fire. He can control a great deal of his reactions, but not his ability to blush, and it's impossible not to be flustered with Slade so near by, saying such filthy things.

Especially when Slade reaches up, pulling his helmet off to reveal _that fucking smirk,_ and then leans down to drag Bruce into a kiss.

It's not like the first. It's not even like the second. There's force in it, but it's not bruising. It's not tender, either. It's _intense,_ Slade's hand cradling the back of Bruce's head as he kisses him. Overwhelming. Devouring.

Bruce feels like he's being taken apart. Slade's other hand rests on his forearm, his grip tight enough to almost hurt, but Bruce still manages to break his hold, twisting his hand around to catch Slade's wrist in his hand instead. There's something there, an _almost_ fight, a tiny struggle for dominance, and then Slade acquiesces, allowing Bruce to keep his hold on Slade's wrist.

He needs it. Being so close to Slade feels like trying to withstand a tornado. He's raw power, barely controlled if it is at all as Slade presses in. It's like he wants to devour Bruce. It's like the very idea of it all—of Bruce falling for him in another dimension—is the most enticing thing he can imagine.

Slade sucks marks into Bruce's neck and Bruce has to struggle just to breathe from the intensity of it. At the same time, it isn't the _bad_ kind of overwhelming, and he shifts his body, wrapping his legs around Slade's middle and using his strength to pull himself up.

His entire body weight is resting on Slade now, and that's just the way he wants it. He _loves_ the feeling of Slade carrying his weight, of the strength there, the absolute _control._ It's intoxicating. Enticing.

And all happening, very, very fast. Bruce knows he should stop it. Should tell Slade to slow down.

He doesn't want it to stop. He wants to keep going, wants to know what Slade is _like._ Wants to experience it firsthand as Slade starts to undo Bruce's armor, finding every latch and clasp like he designed the whole thing himself. Like he knows the suit inside and out.

Like he knows _Bruce_ inside and out.

Bruce keeps wanting to lean back and just _observe,_ to just take it all in, but never allows himself to do so. Never allows himself to stop and think things through, because then the anxieties and the worries will creep in and he doesn't want that.

He wants to enjoy it. He wants to have sex because he _likes_ someone, because the feeling of it is right. He doesn't want to analyze it the way he always does, doesn't want to give it too much thought.

All he wants is the feeling of Slade's mouth on his as his fingers start to work Bruce open, the first pushing in roughly and being followed far too quickly by a second. Slade's still half-dressed, bits and pieces of armor not quite removed. Bruce isn't sure where he got the lube, but there's no question it exists, and the frenzied nature of it all makes it easy not to think about it more than a brief, glancing thought.

Easy not to think of anything beyond the way that Slade is lifting him. Bruce's arms are around Slade's shoulders, while his legs still wrap around Slade's waist. He's suspended in the air, only his own grip and occasionally Slade's hand keeping him upright. Everything is happening so _fast._

But he needs that. Wants it. The feeling of Slade suddenly withdrawing his fingers (two? three?), replacing it with something hard and warm that nudges against Bruce's hole expectantly is... something else.

Okay, maybe _too_ fast.

"You haven't stretched me enough," Bruce hisses, lifting himself away from what has to be Slade's cock. "It's not going to fit."

"You've gotten plenty," Slade says, sounding as reassuring as a shark telling a seal the water's fine. "It'll fit."

"It's not going to fit," Bruce protests as Slade presses a hand onto his hip, easing Bruce right down.

"You'll make do."

He bites at Bruce's neck, almost hard enough to break skin, and in that moment presses Bruce's hips down, the head of his cock popping in with only a bit of resistance.

Bruce can't figure out if he was more stretched than he thought, or if he was just so turned on he managed to relax just the right way.

Or maybe the pain will hit him later.

Right then he doesn't have any room in his brain for anything other than the way it feels. Slade's big, stretching him out, working him open inch by inch as he rocks up into Bruce. Bruce means to say something, to protest, but all he can manage when he opens his mouth is a moan.

Lecturing Slade would be a lot easier if Bruce wasn't losing his mind. It feels like a lifetime since he last had something inside him like this, and Slade knows just the right way to bounce him, the head of his cock rubbing across his prostate as he does.

It's overwhelming, but it's also exactly what he wants.

It takes all his self control just to hold on. Anything more than that is beyond him right then.

Slade, thankfully, doesn't seem interested in Bruce's help. He bears Bruce's entire weight with ease, working him open more and more with each bounce. Bruce can't think. Can't focus. Slade's so deep and it's all so much, and the position, the _angle_ it's at—it's all too much.

Bruce doesn't last nearly as long as he'd like, tipping his way into orgasm overly quickly.

It would be embarrassing, except the more pressing matter is that Slade doesn't stop.

Slade, apparently fully intent on enjoying himself no matter what, simply keeps at it. He doesn't stop. He doesn't even slow down. He simply keeps fucking into Bruce, right through his orgasm, the afterglow, and into almost painful overstimulation.

Bruce whines, desperate, and squirms against Slade, trying to get to his feet. His body feels weak, helpless against Slade's overwhelming strength.

All he can do is hold on as Slade fucks into him, enduring until Slade manages to hit him _just_ right and Bruce feels his cock starting to twitch back to life.

Slade has too much stamina.

Far, far too much. He's already wrung one orgasm out of Bruce, and he's well on his way to the second when Slade's thrusts start getting short and erratic as he chases his own orgasm.

"Slade," Bruce manages to gasp out, but whatever else he was going to say is lost, even to him. He can't _think_ as Slade gives one final thrust, finishing inside Bruce with a moan that Bruce isn't going to forget anytime soon.

And then, spent, Slade simply deposits Bruce, hard and leaking, back onto his chair. He pauses, looks Bruce over, and then seems willing to oblige him, reaching down and wrapping one firm hand around Bruce's cock, jerking him off as he does.

Bruce gets the impression he should be thankful he's getting that much, but any lectures he'd have given are lost in his second orgasm of the day, making a mess of Slade's hand and his own stomach.

Bruce feels absolutely boneless as he sprawls out on the chair, watching Slade clean himself up, wash his hands, and then tuck himself away, starting to put his armor back on.

Bruce knows he should be doing the same, but he's seriously doubtful of the ability of his legs to hold him upright right then. He needs time to recover. Maybe an hour.

Maybe a week for his _brain_ to recover, considering Slade has fucked his brains out and Bruce is having a very hard time pulling himself back together.

"You've got my number, Wayne," Slade says as he pulls his helmet on, and then he's gone, leaving the way he came.

Considering it's the second time Slade's gotten off and exited out the window, Bruce is starting to worry it's becoming a pattern.


End file.
